Phenomenology of Anxiety (Phaenomenologica, 235) [1st ed. 2022] 3030890171, 9783030890179

Table of contents :
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
1 The Anthropological Relevance of Anxiety
2 Polyphonic Phenomenology
References
Chapter 2: Anxiety Between Terror and Fear
1 Terror and Radical Strangeness
2 Insane Terror: Ghosts between Projections and Impressions
3 Blind Terror and the Inhuman Gaze
4 About the Actuality of the Past Trauma
4.1 On Intrusion
4.2 Numbing
4.3 Dissociative Tendencies
4.4 Hypervigilance: On Novelty
5 The Future of Trauma
6 Anxiety as Protection from Trauma: Medusa and Perseus
References
Chapter 3: Anxiety Between Negative Connotation and Positive Teleology: Sartre, Kierkegaard and Heidegger
1 Freedom’s Vertigo
2 Negative Anthropology
3 Is Anxiety Subordinated to Faith?
4 Nothing and Being: Against Parmenides
5 Heidegger’s Concept of the Nothing in the Context of the Metaphysical Tradition
6 Enchanted Calm
7 The Plurality of the Nothing
8 The Ashes of the Past
References
Chapter 4: Anxiety, Desire and Imagination
1 On Philosophy Today
2 The Phenomenological Gaze
3 Anxiety-Preparedness and Anxiety Development
4 A Tentative Digression on Ghosts and on Urdoxa
5 Painful Expectation of the Negative
6 Anxiety Between Excess of Desire and Repetition of Trauma
7 Phenomenology of Phantasy
8 Clear and Unclear Phantasies
9 Inner Consciousness
9.1 Inner Consciousness as Impressional Consciousness
9.2 Inner Time-Consciousness in the Light of the Relation Between Primary Impression, Protention and Retention
10 Unclear Phantasy and Affective Life
References
Chapter 5: Anxiety: A Phenomenological Investigation
1 Trait of Anxiety: Its Quasi-Intentional Imaginative Anticipation
1.1 Supplementary Possibilities
1.2 Imaginative Anticipation: The Doxic Modality of Anxiety
1.3 The Ghosts of Anxiety: The Knight, Death, the Devil (and the Dog)
1.4 Approaching the (Always Postponed) Catastrophe
2 Trait of Anxiety: Its Negative Inspiration
2.1 On Adam
2.2 Presages of the Third Reich
3 Trait of Anxiety: The Alteration of its Bodily Manifestations
3.1 Self-Referentiality and Embodiment: The Recurrence of its Bodily Manifestations
3.2 A Threatening Atmosphere
4 Trait: Interlocution with an Alien Power
4.1 How Does One Become Responsible for One’s Own Anxiety?
4.2 Anxiety as Alien Power
5 Trait of Anxiety: Negative Teleology
5.1 The Ambiguity of the Anxiety-Preparedness
5.2 Complicity
5.3 The Intertwining Between Desire, Anxiety and Prohibition: A Brief Exegesis of a Passage by Proust
5.4 “But Not Now”: Hopes and Anxiety Before the Law (Vor dem Gesetz)
5.5 Involuted Anxiety
5.6 On Self-Disappointment
6 Some Final Remarks
6.1 A Retrospective Look
6.2 Writing for Posterity
6.3 Becoming a Witness of Anxiety
References
General Bibliography

Citation preview

Phaenomenologica 235

Stefano Micali

Phenomenology of Anxiety

Phenomenology of Anxiety

PHAENOMENOLOGICA SERIES FOUNDED BY H. L. VAN BREDA AND PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE HUSSERL-ARCHIVES

235 SERIES EDITORS BY JULIA JANSEN, HUSSERL ARCHIVES, LEUVEN, BELGIUM, STEFANO MICALI, HUSSERL ARCHIVES, LEUVEN, BELGIUM

Editorial Board: R. Bernet (Husserl-Archives, Leuven, Belgium), R. Breeur (Husserl Archives, Leuven, Belgium), H.  Leonardy (Centre d’études phénoménologiques, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium), D. Lories (CEP/ISP/Collège Désiré Mercier, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium), U. Melle (Husserl-Archives, Leuven, Belgium), J.  Taminiaux (Centre d'études phénoménologiques,  Louvain-laNeuve, Belgium), R. Visker (Catholic Univerisity Leuven, Leuven, Belgium) Advisory Editors: R. Bernasconi (Memphis State University, Memphis, USA), D. Carr (Emory University, Atlanta, USA), E. S. Casey (State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, USA), R. Cobb-Stevens (Boston College, Chestnut Hill, USA), J. F. Courtine (ArchivesHusserl, Paris, France), F. Dastur (Université de Paris, Paris, France), K. Düsing (HusserlArchiv, Köln, Germany), J. Hart (Indiana University, Bloomington, USA), K. Held (Bergische Universität, Wuppertal, Germany), K. E. Kaehler (Husserl-Archiv, Köln, Germany), D. Lohmar (Husserl-Archiv, Köln, Germany), W. R. McKenna (Miami University, Oxford, USA), J. N. Mohanty (Temple University, Philadelphia, USA), E. W. Orth (Universität Trier, Trier, Germany), C. Sini (Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy), R. Sokolowski (Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA), B. Waldenfels (Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, Germany) Phaenomenologica is the longest running phenomenological book series world-wide. It was originally founded as a companion series to the Husserliana, and its first volume appeared in 1958. To this day, the series publishes studies of Husserl's work and of the work of related thinkers, investigations into the history of phenomenology, in-depth studies of specific aspects of phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy, and independent phenomenological research by scholars from all over the world. This unique series now unites several generations of phenomenologists, including Emmanuel Levinas, Jan Patočka, Eugen Fink, Roman Ingarden, Alfred Schütz, Bernhard Waldenfels and Marc Richir. Initial inquiries and manuscripts for review should be sent directly to the attention of the Series Editors at [email protected].

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6409

Stefano Micali

Phenomenology of Anxiety

Stefano Micali Husserl-Archives: Centre for Phenomenology and Continental Philosophy KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium

ISSN 0079-1350     ISSN 2215-0331 (electronic) Phaenomenologica ISBN 978-3-030-89017-9    ISBN 978-3-030-89018-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89018-6 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

to Marc Richir, who suggested to me that I write this book, and to Carlo Ginzburg, who, without knowing, made it possible to finish it.

Contents

1 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 1 The Anthropological Relevance of Anxiety����������������������������������������    1 2 Polyphonic Phenomenology���������������������������������������������������������������   10 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   14 2 Anxiety Between Terror and Fear����������������������������������������������������������   17 1 Terror and Radical Strangeness����������������������������������������������������������   17 2 Insane Terror: Ghosts between Projections and Impressions��������������   21 3 Blind Terror and the Inhuman Gaze����������������������������������������������������   25 4 About the Actuality of the Past Trauma����������������������������������������������   30 4.1 On Intrusion������������������������������������������������������������������������������   33 4.2 Numbing������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   36 4.3 Dissociative Tendencies������������������������������������������������������������   41 4.4 Hypervigilance: On Novelty������������������������������������������������������   46 5 The Future of Trauma�������������������������������������������������������������������������   48 6 Anxiety as Protection from Trauma: Medusa and Perseus ����������������   52 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   56 3 Anxiety Between Negative Connotation and Positive Teleology: Sartre, Kierkegaard and Heidegger������������������������������������   59 1 Freedom’s Vertigo ������������������������������������������������������������������������������   59 2 Negative Anthropology ����������������������������������������������������������������������   65 3 Is Anxiety Subordinated to Faith?������������������������������������������������������   72 4 Nothing and Being: Against Parmenides��������������������������������������������   75 5 Heidegger’s Concept of the Nothing in the Context of the Metaphysical Tradition ������������������������������������������������������������   83 6 Enchanted Calm����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   87 7 The Plurality of the Nothing ��������������������������������������������������������������   93 8 The Ashes of the Past��������������������������������������������������������������������������   97 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  106

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Contents

4 Anxiety, Desire and Imagination������������������������������������������������������������  111 1 On Philosophy Today��������������������������������������������������������������������������  111 2 The Phenomenological Gaze��������������������������������������������������������������  113 3 Anxiety-Preparedness and Anxiety Development������������������������������  119 4 A Tentative Digression on Ghosts and on Urdoxa������������������������������  122 5 Painful Expectation of the Negative����������������������������������������������������  129 6 Anxiety Between Excess of Desire and Repetition of Trauma ����������  131 7 Phenomenology of Phantasy ��������������������������������������������������������������  137 8 Clear and Unclear Phantasies��������������������������������������������������������������  140 9 Inner Consciousness����������������������������������������������������������������������������  142 9.1 Inner Consciousness as Impressional Consciousness����������������  142 9.2 Inner Time-Consciousness in the Light of the Relation Between Primary Impression, Protention and Retention����������  144 10 Unclear Phantasy and Affective Life��������������������������������������������������  148 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  151 5 Anxiety: A Phenomenological Investigation������������������������������������������  155 1 Trait of Anxiety: Its Quasi-Intentional Imaginative Anticipation ������  155 1.1 Supplementary Possibilities������������������������������������������������������  155 1.2 Imaginative Anticipation: The Doxic Modality of Anxiety������  157 1.3 The Ghosts of Anxiety: The Knight, Death, the Devil (and the Dog)����������������������������������������������������������������������������  159 1.4 Approaching the (Always Postponed) Catastrophe������������������  163 2 Trait of Anxiety: Its Negative Inspiration ������������������������������������������  166 2.1 On Adam������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  166 2.2 Presages of the Third Reich������������������������������������������������������  169 3 Trait of Anxiety: The Alteration of its Bodily Manifestations������������  171 3.1 Self-Referentiality and Embodiment: The Recurrence of its Bodily Manifestations������������������������������������������������������  171 3.2 A Threatening Atmosphere��������������������������������������������������������  174 4 Trait: Interlocution with an Alien Power��������������������������������������������  179 4.1 How Does One Become Responsible for One’s Own Anxiety?����������������������������������������������������������������������������  179 4.2 Anxiety as Alien Power ������������������������������������������������������������  183 5 Trait of Anxiety: Negative Teleology��������������������������������������������������  184 5.1 The Ambiguity of the Anxiety-Preparedness����������������������������  184 5.2 Complicity ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  187 5.3 The Intertwining Between Desire, Anxiety and Prohibition: A Brief Exegesis of a Passage by Proust��������  189 5.4 “But Not Now”: Hopes and Anxiety Before the Law (Vor dem Gesetz)������������������������������������������������������������������������  192 5.5 Involuted Anxiety����������������������������������������������������������������������  195 5.6 On Self-Disappointment������������������������������������������������������������  199

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6 Some Final Remarks ��������������������������������������������������������������������������  201 6.1 A Retrospective Look����������������������������������������������������������������  201 6.2 Writing for Posterity������������������������������������������������������������������  202 6.3 Becoming a Witness of Anxiety������������������������������������������������  204 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  206

General Bibliography��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  211

Chapter 1

Introduction

1  The Anthropological Relevance of Anxiety In his monographic study La peur en Occident, Jean Delumeau reports an interesting judicial case argued in 1586: a person refuses to pay the whole rent for his apartment because it is haunted by ghosts (Delumeau 1978). One might ironically say that such a forced cohabitation justifies a compensation. Pierre Le Loyer, the adviser of the presidential court in Angers at the time, decided to settle the dispute. I cite Le Loyer’s passage because this sentence vividly shows the ambiguous nature of fear (and anxiety): “If the fear (peur) is not unfounded and the tenant has had occasion to be afraid, only in this case will he be exempted from paying the rent requested, and not otherwise, when the cause of the fear has not been found to be right and legitimate.”1 (Pierre Le Loyer 1608, p.  658) The twisted syntax of this sentence signals a fundamental problem: when is fear (“peur”) justified? When is it “right” and “legitimate”? And when, on the contrary, does fear cease to function as an effective and reasonable signal preventing imminent threats? In Freud’s terms: how to define the boundaries between anxiety-development (Angstentwicklung) and anxiety-­preparedness (Angstbereitschaft) (Freud 1920/1998)? When does fear become an invasive projection of our own ghosts? And to what extent are our fears in turn introjections of other’s ghosts?2 1  The author is responsible for all the translations where there is no indication of a reference to English books in the bibliographic apparatus: “Que si la peur n’auroit esté vaine & que le locataire auroit eu quelque occasion de craindre, en cas le locataire demeurera quitte des louäges & non autrement si la cause de la crainte ne se trouvoit juste & legitime” (Pierre Le Loyer 1608, p. 658). 2  A court case of our times has some interesting similarities to the lawsuit discussed by Pierre Le Loyer. This case was debated in New York in 1991. It is known as the Ghostbusters Ruling: This is “a case in the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, that held that a house, which the owner had previously advertised to the public as haunted by ghosts, legally was haunted for the purpose of an action for rescission brought by a subsequent purchaser of the house.” Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254 (N.Y. App. Div. 1991) Since the house was advertised to the public as haunted, its reputation and therefore also its economic value was greatly affected.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Micali, Phenomenology of Anxiety, Phaenomenologica 235, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89018-6_1

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2

1 Introduction

These questions have an evident political relevance. Our responses or reactions to fear—and the difference between these is anything but marginal if we consider how these terms (response and reaction) mark the boundaries between the “human” and the dominion of what is said to be “the” animal—have consequences whose scope very often escapes us. Even those preventive measures that seem to be neutral profoundly influence our image of the world. If we adopt defensive attitudes, fear and anxiety tend to increase. Surveillance systems make us feel safe. Nevertheless, they reinforce the conviction that the world is a dangerous place, as Altheide points out (Altheide 2002). It is therefore not surprising that the perception of fear has become central to debates in national and international politics: a sense of security even more than security itself becomes the site of political conflict.3 How to start an investigation of anxiety in a rigorous way? Is it even possible to “rigorously” address an overdetermined, chaotic, and acute affect such as anxiety? The way that seems to be less inadequate to me is to introduce a regulative differentiation between fear, anxiety and terror. In the contemporary philosophical debate, great attention has certainly been devoted to the analysis of the connection between fear and anxiety. In various theoretical frameworks, the definition of the relation between fear and anxiety serves as a criterion for establishing the difference between human beings and animal(s). It is therefore not inappropriate to make a brief survey of the status quaestionis in this regard. Allow me, first, a brief preliminary remark: establishing differences between humans and animal(s) is as difficult to avoid as it is impossible to achieve. This situation is, to a large extent, due to the concept of animality. The notion of “the” animal is inadequate in itself since it is a residual concept, as Derrida shows in L’animal que donc je suis (The Animal Therefore I am, Derrida 2006/2008). All animal species are violently “collected” and crammed together in the name of a privation: they are qualified by the common features of not having language, of not having reason, of not being able to feel anxiety etc., ultimately of not being human. The raison d’être of the notion of “the” animal lies in its exclusion from the unique character of human beings (and it is indeed a secondary problem where the uniqueness of that character should and can be located). The main difficulty of the question concerning “animality” consists in reconciling two opposed tendencies: while one should do justice to the undeniable continuity between human beings and other individual living organisms which are classified according to specific orders and criteria (the “species”), it is also essential not to overlook all those differences between “us, 3  Sociological studies show that several contemporary political measures do not address social and economic problems, but rather aim at sedating and “calming” the fear coming from those problems (Furedi 2002). The term “culture of fear” has established itself as a distinctive research direction of sociological studies to describe relevant features of our contemporary time (Bauman 2006; Linke and Smith 2009). This research direction also is interested in investigating the various ways in which political power exploits fear, amplifying it and disseminating it through the media: “(…) Fear is socially constructed, packaged and presented through the mass media by politicians and decision makers to protect us by offering more control over our lives and culture.” (Altheide 2017, p. x)

1  The Anthropological Relevance of Anxiety

3

human beings” and those who are excluded from “our” human community. The complex (re-)definition of these relations in terms of exclusion and inclusion is an unstable, ongoing process. It is constantly renegotiated in different eras and cultures, with incalculable political, juridical and economic consequences.4 The definition of these relations always entails theological, philosophical and metaphysical presuppositions.5 As already mentioned, the definition of the relation between anxiety and fear plays a relevant role in philosophical inquiries into the human condition. In this respect, it is possible to locate two antagonistic tendencies in contemporary thought: 1. On the one hand, an important tradition regards the experience of anxiety as exclusively proper to human beings. If we consider authors “branded” with the imprecise category of existentialism—such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Tillich, or Sartre—, anxiety marks the exceptional place of humanity in the universe. If one follows the dominant view in the philosophical literature on anxiety, Kierkegaard is the author who first introduces a rigorous distinction between fear and anxiety. The essential characteristic of anxiety resides in its lack of reference to any object: anxiety is anxiety of no-thing. Kierkegaard emphasizes the essential role of anxiety in the ambiguous process of self-identification. The objectlessness of anxiety means initially a latent, dreamlike anticipation of the spirit (Kierkegaard 1980). Anxiety shows that the human being is from the onset out of balance in dealing with their own opposed tendencies between finite and infinite, between possibility and necessity. Human beings can find peace only once they have established a healthy relation with the alien power (God) on which the self-relation is grounded. In Heidegger’s view, anxiety is the fundamental mood that opens the only possible dimension of authenticity conceded to human being. Here anxiety is linked to the experience of nothing and being toward death (Sein zum Tode). In Sartre’s view, anxiety reveals our ungrounded and absolute freedom (Sartre 1943/1984). While fear regards the relation to threats coming from the (outside) world, anxiety primarily concerns our relation to ourselves in a threatening situation: how will I react to the danger? Anxiety presupposes imagination of a future situation and has a (self-)“reflective” nature. We may be afraid of poverty, but we feel anxiety about how we will deal with a condition of privation: in anxiety our freedom is at stake. “In this sense fear

 This point becomes tragically visible in Robert Antelme’s book which bears the title L’espèce humaine (1957). 5  Some brief remarks on the metaphysical presupposition can be found in Chapter 4, Sect. 4. The research on “the” animal cannot be separated from the question about sacrifice: the living animal excluded from the human community is expendable and dispensable. In my opinion, an analysis of the “animality” should proceed by unifying different lines of research: (1) It is imperative to critically assess the results of the different empirical sciences (from ethology to cognitive sciences). (2) It is necessary to reconstruct the relationship of the single organism with the surrounding environment by finding the ways in which it co-constitutes its Umwelt. In this perspective, the circle between Merkwelt and Wirkwelt investigated by von Uexküll (1934/2010) remains a point of reference of considerable value. (3) It is important to carry out a genealogical and deconstructive research of the terms used (such as ‘organism’, ‘individual’, ‘animal’), by highlighting their inconsistencies, difficulties and shifts. 4

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1 Introduction

and anxiety are exclusive of one another since fear is unreflective apprehension of the transcendent and anxiety is reflective apprehension of the self; the one emerges from the destruction of the other. The normal process in the case which I have just cited is a constant transition from the one to the other.”6 (Sartre 1984, p. 66, trans. modified). We are afraid of a specific danger and we are anxious about not knowing how we will relate to what we are afraid of. It is not by chance that one can also get distressed and anxious without being afraid—such as, for instance, when one believes that one is not entitled to receive an honorific title or a special award. Yet, despite all relevant differences, the above-mentioned positions share a common ground: anxiety has an anthropopoietic function. Anxiety is a phenomenon which marks the irreducible difference between human beings and “the” animal(s).7 2. On the other hand, there is a minor tradition which goes in exactly the opposite direction: not anxiety, but rather fear essentially characterizes human beings. Goldstein and Blumenberg may be considered the most prominent representatives of this view. Here, anxiety is seen as a mismatch between organism and environment. It is a shock deriving from the impossibility of reacting to external challenges in a coherent way. Anxiety arises when adequate responses to the surrounding environment become impossible (Goldstein 1934, p. 254). Goldstein introduces a distinction between fear and anxiety as follows: whereas we have a distinct threatening object in front of us in fear, anxiety destabilizes us from behind. On the other hand, anxiety attacks us from the rear, so to speak. The only thing we can do is to attempt to flee from it without knowing where to go, because we experience it as coming from no particular place. This flight is sometimes successful, though merely by chance, but it usually fails: anxiety remains with us.8 (Goldstein 1995, pp. 230-1)

What does it mean that anxiety attacks us from behind? In order to answer this question and, therefore, to fully understand Goldstein’s account of the relation between anxiety and fear, it is necessary to take into account his seminal distinction between two different dimensions that are strictly intertwined—(a) an experiential “axis” and (b) an ecological “axis”:

6  “En ce sens la peur et l’angoisse sont exclusives l’une de l’autre, puisque la peur est appréhension irréfléchie du transcendant et l’angoisse appréhension réflexive du soi, l’une naît de la destruction de l’autre et le processus normal, dans le cas que je viens de citer, est un passage constant de l’une à l’autre.” (Sartre 1943, p. 64) I have introduced a change in all quotes regarding the English translation of Sartre’s work L’être et le néant: in my view, it is more appropriate to translate “angoisse” with “anxiety” rather than with “anguish”. 7  Chapter 3 will be devoted to a critical discussion of the concept of anxiety in Sartre, Kierkegaard and Heidegger. 8  “Die Angst sitzt uns gewissermassen im Rücken, wir können nur versuchen, ihr zu entfliehen, allerdings ohne zu wissen wohin, weil wir sie von keinem Orte herkommend erleben, sodass uns diese Flucht auch nur zufällig mal gelingt, meist misslingt; die Angst bleibt mit uns verhaftet.” (Goldstein 1934, p. 189)

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5

(a) The experiential dimension revolves around the distinction between ordered behavior and catastrophic behavior. Goldstein’s analysis of anxiety is based on his research on patients with brain damage caused by their participation in the First World War. These patients feel the greatest agitation when performing easy tasks that they would have comfortably accomplished before the disturbance arose, such as combining words in a required order. Their “agitation” is not the result or the consequence of a (failed) action, but should rather be conceived of as the medium in which the action itself takes place: I have pointed out that the behavior of the patient when he solves a task and when he does not solve it, is only very imperfectly characterized by the account of the effect. We can only gain a deeper understanding if we consider the completely different overall behavior in both situations. Once—in the case of failure—we see a strange stiffness in the face, the patient turns red or pale, there is a change in pulse, general restlessness, tremors, an angry or perplexed expression, a rejecting behavior in appearance; the other instance—during the goal oriented performance—an animated, happy expression, calm, serenity, a commitedness to the task at hand. One could think that these are precisely the different reactions of the patient to his ability or inability to do so. But that would be an inadequate description. It speaks against this view that these general reactions in no way follow performance or non-performance, but rather occur simultaneously with them. Furthermore, the patients often cannot say why they have become excited, angry, and dismissive.9 (Goldstein 1971, p. 236)

Anxiety is the organism’s fundamental reaction which Goldstein defines as a catastrophic behavior in opposition to an ordered behavior. In the latter case, one is able to accomplish both tasks and challenges occurring in the present situation without any difficulty: ordered behavior expresses itself in calm and control. The catastrophic reactions, on the other hand, prove themselves to be not only ‘inadequate’ but also disordered, inconstant, inconsistent, and embedded in physical and mental shock. In these situations, the individual feels himself unfree, buffeted, and vacillating. He ­experiences a shock affecting not only his own person, but the surrounding world as well. He is in that condition that we usually call anxiety. (Goldstein 1995, p. 49, trans. modified).10

9  “Ich habe darauf hingewiesen, dass das Verhalten des Kranken, wenn er eine Aufgabe löst, und wenn er sie nicht löst, mit der Feststellung des Effektes nur höchst unvollkommen charakterisiert werde, dass wir ein tieferes Verständnis nur gewinnen, wenn wir das völlig verschiedene Gesamtverhalten in den beiden Situationen mit heranziehen. Einmal—bei dem Versagen—sehen wir eine eigenartige Starre im Gesicht, der Kranke wird rot oder blass, es tritt eine Pulsveränderung, allgemeine Unruhe, Zittern, ein zorniger oder ratloser Ausdruck, ein ablehnendes Verhalten in Erscheinung; das andere Mal—bei der Leistung—ein belebter freudiger Gesichtsausdruck, Ruhe, Gelassenheit, Bei-der-Sache-sein. Man konnte denken, das sind eben die verschiedenen Reaktionen des Kranken auf das Können und Nichtkönnen. Aber das wäre eine inadäquate Schilderung. Gegen diese Auffassung spricht es schon, dass diese Allgemeinreaktionen keineswegs der Leistung bzw. der Nichtleistung folgen, sondern gleichzeitig mit ihr auftreten. Weiter, dass die Kranken oft gar nicht angeben können, warum sie erregt, zornig, abweisend geworden sind.” (Goldstein 1971, p. 236) 10  “Die katastrophalen Reaktionen erweisen sich dem gegenüber nicht nur als “unrichtig”, sondern als ungeordnet, wechselnd, widerspruchsvoll, eingebettet in Erscheinungen körperlicher und seelischer Erschütterung. Der Kranke erlebt sich in diesen Situationen unfrei, hin und her gerissen,

6

1 Introduction

Here, no consistent constitution of objects emerges. Anxiety attacks us from the rear because it is not possible to identify its source: Observation discloses that, in the state of anxiety, the patient is not really conscious of the impossibility of solving the task and of the danger threatening from it. This can be seen by the fact that the patient does not realize the danger of an object that is the extraneous occasion for the appearance of the anxiety—he is not even capable of this. Because of his specific disturbance, he cannot establish a relation with the object, to wit, he cannot grasp it in such a way that he could appreciate its danger. Apprehending an object presupposes ordered functional evaluation of the stimulus. The fact that the catastrophic condition involves the impossibility of ordered reactions precludes a subject “having” an object in the outer world. (Goldstein 1971, pp. 231–232)

Goldstein shares the existentialist perspective in this respect: in anxiety we relate ourselves to no-thing as long as we consider only the experiential dimension (Goldstein 1934, 190; Visker 2004, pp. 66–68). (b) Goldstein’s view differs from existentialist positions with regard to a crucial point: anxiety does not emerge without any reason. Goldstein vigorously opposes the sort of affected mysticism which is not foreign to some existentialist approaches to this affect. The origin of anxiety depends on specific mismatches between organism and environment. These mismatches elude consciousness (Goldstein 1934, pp.  190–195). Thus, anxiety should also be considered in ecological terms: The above statement, however, must be amended. It is only true as far as we consider the inner experience. But the organism that is seized by the catastrophic shock is, of course, in the state of coping with a definite, objective reality; the organism is faced with some “object.” The state of anxiety becomes intelligible only if we consider the objective confrontation of the organism with a definite environment. Only then can we comprehend the basic phenomenon of anxiety: the occurrence of disordered stimulus evaluation as it is conditioned through the conflict of the organism with a certain environment not adequate for it. This objectively endangers the organism in the actualization of its nature. Thus, we may talk of “contentless” anxiety only if we regard the experience alone. To be sure, it is usually in this sense that one talks of anxiety. But this is not quite correct and is due to a false emphasis on subjective experience in the characterization of so-called psychic phenomena. (Goldstein 1971, p. 239)

Anxiety is a shock deriving from the impossibility of facing the challenges of the surrounding world (Umwelt) (Goldstein 1934, pp.  186–187). In order to avoid undue one-sidedness, an investigation of anxiety should always consider both these axes: the experiential and the ecological. Goldstein’s position is highly significant from a therapeutic point of view because it invites us to analyze the interaction between the individual and its environment, and more specifically, the conflicts and tensions that remain hidden from subject’s awareness.11 Furthermore, it has an important consequence for the definition of the human: the primary characteristic of schwankend, er erlebt eine Erschütterung der Welt um sich wie seiner eigenen Person. Er befindet sich in einem Zustand, den wir gewöhnlich als Angst bezeichnen.” (Goldstein 1934, p. 24) 11  It is worth noting that with regard to the relations between organism and the surrounding world Goldstein’s notion of object is equivocal (Micali 2016).

1  The Anthropological Relevance of Anxiety

7

the human does not lie in the agitated, chaotic and invasive feeling of anxiety, but rather in fear—conceived of as an ordered response to an identifiable threat. Following Goldsteins’s view, Blumenberg’s research shows that only human beings are capable of transforming anxiety into fear by means of the combination of complex social interactions and symbolic activities, such as language. Does reason start from anxiety? Is reason a defense mechanism against anxiety? But how should anxiety be thought? Is it the opposite of reason? Is it the suspension of reasoning? According to Blumenberg, the origin of reason should be sought in the human response to an overwhelming anxiety. To understand this genealogy, Blumenberg introduces the notion of “the absolutism of reality.” The absolutism of reality is a limit concept referring to a pre-historical situation, to a “state of nature” where the human being was still not capable of controlling the conditions of his life, and “what is more important, believed that he simply lacked control of them” (Blumenberg 1985, p. 4). The absolutism of reality may be characterized as a situation in which panic prevails. Clearly inspired by Johann Gottfried Herder, Blumenberg attributes fundamental importance to the shift to an upright posture. More specifically, he connects the pervasive feeling of anxiety with the development of bipedalism. He further elaborates this connection via the so-called “Savannah Hypothesis.”12 The upright position was due to a significant change of the environment. When our ancestors started living in savannah, a consistent upright position became a clear advantage from an evolutionary point of view. This bipedalism also signifies a new relation to the surrounding world. In Blumenberg’s view, a new interconnection between vision and visibility sets in. The main idea is that the upright posture enables a new relation to what is beyond the visible horizon of perception. Through the upright posture, the organism is now capable of widening its field of perception, but it is also more vulnerable, since it is more visible to potential enemies. This situational transformation has an impact on our “capacity for foresight” (“die Fähigkeit zur Prävention”), on our “anticipation of what has not yet taken place” (“der Vorgriff auf das noch nicht eingetreten”), and on “attitude toward what is absent beyond the horizon” (“die Einstellung aufs Abwesende hinter dem Horizont”): “In all converges on what is accomplished by concepts. Before that, though, the pure state of indefinite anticipation is anxiety. To formulate it paradoxically, it is intentionality of consciousness without object”13 (Blumenberg 1985, p. 5). The power of naming plays a major role in avoiding the invasive affect of anxiety: “What has become identifiable by means of a name is raised out of its unfamiliarity by means of metaphor and is made accessible, in terms of its significance, by telling stories of what is at stake. Panic and paralysis, as the two extremes of anxiety behavior, are dissolved by the appearance of calculable magnitudes to deal with and  A recent remarkable critical discussion of this theory can be found in Domínguez-Rodrigo’s paper: Is the “Savanna Hypothesis” a Dead Concept for Explaining the Emergence of the Earliest Hominins? (Domínguez-Rodrigo’s 2014, pp. 55–69); see also Schrenk’s account in his book “Die Frühzeit des Menschen” (Schrenk 1997, pp. 30–32). 13  “Alles konvergierend auf die Leistung des Begriffs. Dem zuvor aber ist die reine Zuständlichkeit der unbestimmten Prävention die Angst. Sie ist, um paradox zu formulieren, Intentionalität des Bewusstseins ohne Gegenstand.” (Blumenberg 1979, p. 10) 12

8

1 Introduction

regulated ways of dealing with them (…)”14 (Blumenberg 1985, p. 5). The almost magical power to name allows us to “shape,” that is, to define anxiety. Naming affords us distance from our affects: in this way, we are also able to determine anxiety. Fear presupposes the establishment of a stable symbolic order, namely the creation of a cosmos. In other words, the affect of fear is a result of cultural achievements. The transition from anxiety to fear occurs “primarily, not through experience and knowledge, but rather through devices like that of the substitution of the familiar for the unfamiliar, of explanations for the inexplicable, of names for the unnamable”15 (Blumenberg 1985, p. 5; Pippin 1997, pp. 288–290). Put differently, all fears arise from anxiety—they are, so to speak, “urbanizations” of anxiety. From Goldstein’s and Blumenberg’s perspective, it does not make sense to ask the question whether animals feel anxiety. Assuming that fear presupposes the establishment of a stable order, related both to symbolic activities and the organism’s detachment from its surrounding world (Umwelt), then it is definitely more appropriate to ask a different question: are animals capable of feeling fear? It is necessary to clarify an aspect of this perspective that easily gives rise to misunderstandings. The conception of fear considered here does not primarily concern the objective identification of a distinct external danger. Such a thesis would indeed be untenable. Ethological research shows that several animal species communicate dangers to members of their group in a very efficient way. And this is particularly evident for species known for their high communication skills such as anthropomorphic monkeys, parrots, dolphins, mongooses, ants and bees. For example, vervet monkeys signal dangers through a sophisticated system: four different calls refer to the presence of four different predators—pythons, baboons, eagles and leopards (Seyfarth et  al. 1980). Goldstein and Blumenberg develop a concept of fear that does not primarily concern the problem of communication of information about a given external threat to other members of the groups. It rather relates to subjective processes of (self)-regulation of affect through the mediation of symbolic activities coming from social interaction. Self-regulation implies and enhances a distance, a delayed relation, a temporal gap between the surrounding world’s affordances and one’s own answers. Distancing oneself from destabilizing affects, not immediately reacting to changes in the surrounding circumstances, and developing the use of linguistic symbols through social interactions, are closely intertwined processes.16  “Was durch den Namen identifizierbar geworden ist, wird aus seiner Unvertrautheit durch die Metapher herausgehoben, durch das Erzählen von Geschichten erschlossen in dem, was es mit ihm auf sich hat. Panik und Erstarrung als die beiden Extreme des Angstverhaltens lösen sich unter dem Schein kalkulierbarer Umgangsgrößen und geregelter Umgangsformen (…).” (Blumenberg 1979, p. 12) 15  “Das geschieht primär nicht durch Erfahrung und Erkenntnis, sondern durch Kunstbegriffe, wie die Supposition des Vertrauten für das Unvertraute, der Erklärungen für das Unerklärliche, der Benennungen für das Unbenennbare.” (Blumenberg 1985, p. 11) 16  The investigation of the present question would greatly benefit from research on the relation between Goldstein’s approach to fear, the notion of an eccentric position in Plessner’s sense (1928), and the phenomenon of joint attention, that occupies a prominent role within the field of evolutionary anthropology (Tomasello and Farrar 1986; Tomasello and Kruger 1992; Tomasello 1999). 14

1  The Anthropological Relevance of Anxiety

9

Consistent with his approach, Goldstein holds that children are initially more subject to anxiety than to fear: learning to feel fear is a gradual process; it is, as already said, a cultural achievement. In this regard, a brief observation on the function of fairy tales for our relation to anxiety is helpful. Many fairy tales—for example, Charles Perrault’s Bluebeard or several stories written by Grimm—may be seen as an initiation into evil for children. I have always wondered why parents read such disturbing stories to their children when putting them to bed: why tell a four-year-­ old boy the story of a serial killer, as in the case of Bluebeard? According to the psychoanalyst Mentzos, fairy tales primarily perform a pedagogical function with respect to anxiety: “It is to assume that the emergence of terrifying tales and the predilection of children for this kind of stories are associated with the fact that children have here the opportunity both to concretize vague anxieties and to endure them in the presence of an adult”17 (Mentzos 1982, p.  35). An analysis of Propp’s studies on the fairy tale may help both to corroborate and to further develop Mentzos’ thesis. From Propp’s perspective, fairy tales are characterized by a specific structure: they start with the experience of the hero’s separation from their condition, from their “home” (from their “feeling at home”). After having experienced several misadventures and challenges, the hero is able to come to terms with these adversities: the violated order thus is redeemed (Propp 1968). The narration of different forms of negativities (such as abandonment, loss, etc.) exposes the child to an experience of regulated anxiety: the interruption of order is functional to the “stabilization” of the world into a meaningful and safe cosmos. Put differently, the narration of different forms of negativity is connected to the transformation (and condensation) of anxiety into fear. This interpretation of fairy tales seems to suggest that it is always better to name, verbalize, or give shape to evil, even in its crudest forms, than to be exposed to the intense night of free-floating anxiety.

Above all, research on great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas) stands out for their relevance (Byrne et al. 2017). Both chimpanzees and gorillas show complex strategic behaviors regarding fear. De Waal reports an interesting case of a chimpanzee covering his own face to prevent an antagonist from seeing his expressions of fear. If the rival was aware of his fear, he would have been in a clearly disadvantageous position: “I observed a remarkable series of signal disguises. After Luit and Nikkie had displayed in each other’s proximity for over 10 minutes a conflict broke out between them in which Luit was supported by Mama and Puist. Nikkie was driven into a tree, but a little later he began to hoot at the leader again while he was still perched in the tree. Luit was sitting at the bottom of the tree with his back to his challenger. When he heard the renewed sounds of provocation, he bared his teeth but immediately put his hand to his mouth and pressed his lips together. I could not believe my eyes and quickly focused my binoculars on him. I saw the nervous grin appear on his face again and once more he used his fingers to press his lips together. The third time Luit finally succeeded in wiping the grin off his face; only then did he turn around. A little later he displayed at Nikkie as if nothing had happened, and with Mama’s help he chased him back into the tree. Nikkie watched his opponents walk away” (De Waal 2007, p. 128). See also: Tanner and Byrne (1993). 17  “Es ist zu vermuten, dass die Entstehung von furchterregenden Märchen und die besondere Vorliebe der Kinder dafür damit zusammenhängt, dass diese hier Gelegenheit haben, diffuse Ängste zu konkretisieren und in Begleitung des Erwachsenen ‘durchzusetzen.” (Mentzos 1982, p. 35)

10

1 Introduction

Finally, it is important to highlight a presupposition of Blumenberg’s account that I find quite problematic: blind panic is assumed as the core of anxiety. It is not to be excluded that there is a hint of irony in his hyperbolic statement that anxiety is always pathological (Blumenberg 1979/1985).18 Still, anxiety primarily signifies a suspension of symbolic activities in Blumenberg’s theory. In the present work, I intend to question Blumenberg’s thesis. Anxiety should not primarily be conceived of as blind panic. Rather it signifies a re-orientation of our thinking, of our symbolic activities, of our imagination. Anxiety does not simply “suspend” symbolic activities. Such a suspension represents a limit-case occurring in extreme pathological forms of anxiety. Generally, however, anxiety makes us see ghosts, enlarges dangers, alters our perspective on the world, and amplifies our emotional response to threats. In other words, it entails—to use Merleau-Ponty’s expression (after André Malraux)—a “coherent deformation” of both our symbolic activities and of affective responses. To summarize the provisional results of the present section: I have taken two different traditions into account in order to define the relation between fear and anxiety. This relation has been sketched in opposing terms. In one case, anxiety is considered an essential characteristic of the human being, whereas, in the other case, this status has been assigned to fear understood as the “urbanization” of anxiety. Still, both traditions share a basic assumption: understanding the relationship between fear and anxiety is essential for understanding the human being.

2  Polyphonic Phenomenology From the point of view of ordinary language, it is difficult to make a rigorous distinction between anxiety, fear, anguish, worry, pre-occupation, etc. If one attempts to investigate these affects systematically, it is almost unavoidable for the sake of clarity and coherence, to overemphasize their specific features at the cost of other equally relevant aspects. In other words, this systematic attempt inevitably entails a certain degree of arbitrariness which should preferably remain undetected, in order to establish clear and reliable boundaries between those different phenomena. For this reason, it is essential to underscore the fluid nature of affective phenomena from the very beginning. Our concepts certainly influence and shape our affects. But the concepts operate on a fluid surface. They are comparable to those figures that are formed on the surface of water and that gradually become indistinguishable. We can certainly see the circle caused by throwing a stone in a pond. That circle  “In spite of its biological function in separation and transition situations where magnitudes of danger are not predefined, anxiety is never realistic. It does not first become pathological as a phenomenon of recent human history; it is pathological.” (Blumenberg 1985, p. 6) “Angst ist, trotz ihrer biologischen Funktion für Trennungs- und Übergangszustände unter nicht präformierten Gefahrengrößen, niemals realistisch. Als Spätphänomen des Menschen wird sie nicht erst pathologisch, sie ist es.” (Blumenberg 1979, p. 12)

18

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11

corresponds to the word “anxiety”— it has a certain physiognomy and specific features, but the sharpness of its outlines easily tends to dissolve into something else. The differences that seem clear and distinct slip away, becoming other than themselves. Therefore, it is important to find a balance, a middle way, between the demand to do justice to affective phenomena in their specificity and the awareness of their evanescence and fluidity: these features are incompatible with any categorical rigidity. It is crucial to mention here the linguistic difficulties that mark, almost obsess, the present work: 1. These difficulties first of all concern ordinary language. I will address and critically discuss authors who not only belong to different philosophical traditions and disciplines, but also deal with the problem of anxiety in different languages at different historical periods. Even the most basic choices of translation represent telling challenges: how to translate the German word Angst into English? The most natural candidate seems to be “anxiety.” Another viable option may be “anguish.” Theoretically it would even be possible to keep the original term “angst.” The decision about translation is all but easy, especially bearing in mind that “Angst” in German is a very common word that has a broad meaning—to the extent that it includes extreme phenomena of real terror (“die nackte Angst”). Instead, the word “angst” in English belongs to a sophisticated speech pattern that almost unequivocally betrays an academic education. The word “anguish” emphasizes the aspect of intense current suffering gravitating towards pain. The term “anxiety” is today immediately associated with the psychotherapeutic context: it is linked to a pathological disorder. These various nuances inevitably have an impact on our understanding of the affective phenomenon. It is indeed important not to overlook the relevance of these asymmetries, shifts and discrepancies between different languages. Sometimes, the translation of a philosophical term generates a heated debate on a specific affect, without it having an equivalent in the original language. To cite a paradigmatic case in this regard: there is no doubt that Heidegger’s analysis of the relations among fear, anxiety and terror has a significant impact on the philosophical, psychiatric and anthropological tradition in different linguistic communities (such as English, French, Spanish and Italian). However, the term “terror” cannot be found in Sein und Zeit: Heidegger uses the expression Entsetzen (Heidegger 1967, p. 142). The importance of these linguistic “shifts” cannot be overestimated. 2. It is clear that the concepts of anxiety and fear receive different meanings depending on the different theoretical frameworks in which they are elaborated. As already noted, according to a dominant view in the philosophical literature, starting from Kierkegaard the absence of an object is seen as the discriminating factor between anxiety and fear. Whereas fear is directed to a concrete and immediate threat clearly identifiable against the actual horizon of experience, anxiety does not refer to any object and arises without any reason. Anxiety relates to the undifferentiated nothing. This approach has been further developed not only by existentialist authors such as Heidegger, Tillich, and Sartre, but has also been taken up by influential scholars belonging to other disciplines, such as

12

1 Introduction

Sigmund Freud. It is not difficult to understand the reason for the success of this differentiation. This “scheme” introduces clear reference points which help us to orientate ourselves in the analysis of a protean affect. And yet this view is problematic in several respects. I limit myself to mentioning two of them:



(a) This approach misunderstands Kierkegaard’s perspective. It is not possible to deepen Kierkegaard’s concept of anxiety here (see Chapter 3, Sects. 1–3), but I cannot avoid a short remark on this subject. It is no exaggeration to argue that the above-mentioned interpretation is a caricature of Kierkegaard’s thought. Anxiety is certainly related to the notion of no-thing, but this nothing changes its meaning according to the context: while anxiety of nothingness shows itself as fate in Paganism, anxiety is opening onto nothing as guilt in Judaism. In the state of innocence, anxiety disturbs the self as an anticipation of spirit. This form of anxiety is very different from the anxiety of sin in Christianity (Kierkegaard 1980; Theunissen 1997; Grøn 2008). Anxiety is certainly anxiety of nothing, but the concept of nothing has different meanings in different historical situations. In other words, the ambiguity of anxiety is related to the plurivocity of the notion of nothing (see Chapter 3, Sect. 7). (b) This “scheme” enjoys such success that one is tempted to “project” the articulation of a relation between anxiety and fear onto traditions of thought that do not know this kind of differentiation. The term phobos in Aristotle’s Rhetoric evidently eludes the distinction between an anxiety open to nothingness and a fear intentionally directed to a particular threat.

Yet, a hermeneutic approach sensitive to the variations of the meaning of these words (fear, anxiety, phobos, angoisse etc.) faces a distinctive difficulty: it risks an inconsistent use of the terms. Thus we find ourselves at a crossroads between Scylla and Charybdis—between an incoherent use of these terms and an illegitimate generalization of a current differentiation based on the (lack of) intentional reference. To solve this difficulty, I will refer to the original term in parenthesis after the English translation (such as phobos, metus, timor, crainte etc.). Systematic reference to the original term reminds us that it is illegitimate to project our categories onto foreign horizons of experience and thought. While a lack of concordance cannot be avoided, this discrepancy does justice to the specificity of the different conceptual frameworks. This solution is in line with the general structure of the present work, which is irreducibly polyphonic. My use of the term “polyphony” alludes to the theory that Bakhtin develops in his analysis of Dostoevsky’s work. Bakhtin’s theory intends to underline the autonomy of different voices that cannot be traced back to a unitary and all-encompassing neutral discourse: “A plurality of independent and unmerged

2  Polyphonic Phenomenology

13

voices and consciousnesses, a genuine polyphony of fully valid voices is in fact the chief characteristic of Dostoevsky’s novels”19 (Bakhtin 1984, p. 6). Furthermore, polyphony presupposes a dramatic juxtaposition of positions which do not appear easily compatible (Bakhtin 1984, p.  28). Hence, the juxtaposition does not reach any overall vision that unifies the different parts from above into an ordered and coherent whole, nor does it resolve into a dialectic in which the partial truths of the single phases are redeemed in a synthetic movement of a higher order. The essential categories of polyphony are coexistence and interaction, as opposed to the notion of evolution: Dostoevsky strives to organize all available meaningful material, all material of reality, in one time-frame, in the form of a dramatic juxtaposition, and he strives to develop it extensively. An artist such as Goethe, for example, gravitates organically toward an evolving sequence. He strives to perceive all existing contradictions as various stages of some unified development (…). In contrast to Goethe, Dostoevsky attempted to perceive the very stages themselves in their simultaneity, to juxtapose and counterpose them dramatically, and not stretch them out into an evolving sequence. For him, to get one’s bearings on the world meant to conceive all its contents as simultaneous, and to guess at their interrelationships in the cross-section of a single moment. (Bakhtin 1984, p. 28)

Dramatic juxtaposition tends to make opposing perspectives contemporary, creating a pluralistic world with irreducible tensions between different points of view.20 Therefore, the present work may even be seen as an archipelago of different fragments that reflect the same question from different angles.21 It aspires to do justice to the alterity of our own voice and thinking. It is also important to add that my use

 “In no way, then, can a character’s discourse be exhausted by the usual functions of characterization and plot development, nor does it serve as a vehicle for the author’s own ideological position (as with Byron, for instance). The consciousness of a character is given as someone else’s consciousness, another consciousness, yet at the same time it is not turned into an object, is not closed, does not become a simple object of the author’s consciousness. [...] Dostoevsky is the creator of the polyphonic novel. He created a fundamentally new novelistic genre.” (Bakhtin 1984, p. 7) 20  “Dostoevsky’s extraordinary artistic capacity for seeing everything in coexistence and interaction […] sharpened, and to an extreme degree, his perception in the cross-section of a given moment, and permitted him to see many and varied things where others saw one and the same thing. Where others saw a single thought, he was able to find and feel out two thoughts, a bifurcation; where others saw a single quality, he discovered in it the presence of a second and contradictory quality. Everything that seemed simple became, in his world, complex and multi-structured. In every voice he could hear two contending voices, in every expression a crack, and the readiness to go over immediately to another contradictory expression; in every gesture he detected confidence and lack of confidence simultaneously; he perceived the profound ambiguity, even multiple ambiguity, of every phenomenon. But none of these contradictions and bifurcations ever became dialectical, they were never set in motion along a temporal path or in an evolving sequence: they were, rather, spread out in one plane, as standing alongside or opposite one another, as consonant but not merging or as hopelessly contradictory, as an eternal harmony of unmerged voices or as their unceasing and irreconcilable quarrel.” (Bakhtin 1984, p. 30) 21  This polyphonic approach has strongly influenced my decisions concerning less visible aspects of the present work, such as the use of citations and quotes. I use long citations in order to let the other’s voice be heard. In addition to their evident hermeneutic value, references to the original texts in the footnotes also contribute to the polyphonic aspiration of this manuscript. 19

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1 Introduction

of Bakhtin’s polyphonic theory is strongly influenced by different contemporary paradigms such as Levinas’s idea of the primacy of the Other, Bernhard Waldenfels’s responsive phenomenology, Derrida’s deconstructivist approach, and Ginzburg’s morphological research (Micali 2020). At the same time, the present work aims at carrying out a rigorous phenomenological analysis of anxiety in post-Husserlian sense. In Chapter 4, Sects. 1–3, I underline the meaning, the function and relevance of phenomenology in the context of contemporary philosophy with its introduction to new concepts of phenomenon and intuition. One could see a tension between the two above mentioned moments central to the present research: a polyphonic approach and a phenomenological investigation. How is it possible to do a rigorous phenomenological analysis through (and via) a polyphonic approach? In my view, exactly the opposite is true. Phenomenology taught us that the concept of rigor cannot be the same in different contexts, in different domains. Only a polyphonic approach is able to do justice to a phenomenon as ambiguous as the anxiety in a rigorous way.22

References Altheide, David. 2002. Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. ———. 2017. Terrorism and the Politics of Fear. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press. Antelme, Robert. 1957. L’espèce humaine. Paris: Gallimard. Bakhtin, Michael Michajlovič. 1984. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bauman, Zygmunt. 2006. Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Blumenberg, Hans. 1979. Arbeit am Mythos. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main. English edition: 1985. Work on Myth (trans: Wallace, Robert M). Cambridge: MIT Press. Byrne, R.W., E.  Cartmill, E.  Genty, K.E.  Graham, C.  Hobaiter, and J.  Tanner. 2017. Great ape gestures: intentional communication with a rich set of innate signals. Animal Cognition 4: 755–769. De Waal, Frans. 2007. Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Delumeau, Jean. 1978. La Peur en Occident (XIVe-XVIIIe siècles). Paris: Fayard. Derrida, Jacques. 2006. L’animal que donc je suis. Paris: Galilée. English edition: 2008. The Animal Therefore I am (trans: Wills, David). New York: Fordham University Press. Domínguez-Rodrigo, Manuel. 2014. Is the “Savanna Hypothesis” a Dead Concept for Explaining the Emergence of the Earliest Hominins? Current Anthropology 55: 59–81.

 In the present work converge the results of several years of research. It is not possible to express my thanks to all the persons who directly or indirectly contributed to it. I limit myself to thank Bernhard Waldenfels, Thomas Fuchs, Julia Jansen, Vittorio Gallese, Carlo Severi, Andrea Robiglio, Tommaso Gorla, Michela Summa, Emanuele Caminada, Matthias Flatscher, Diego D’Angelo, and most of all, my wife Frederiek Baan and my daughters Anna and Marta. Special thanks go to Rikus van Eeden, Alexander Orlov, and Valeria Bizzari for their great help in revising my manuscript. Part of Chapter 4, Sects. 7–10, was already published in Husserl Studies under the title “Phenomenology of unclear Phantasy”: Micali Stefano. 2020. Phenomenology of unclear Phantasy. Husserl Studies Vol. 36/3, pp. 227–240.

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Freud, Sigmund. 1998. Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse [1917], Gesammelte Werke Bd, XI. Frankfurt am main: Fischer. English edition: Freud, Sigmund. 1920. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (trans: Stanley Hall, G.). New York: Boni & Liveright. Furedi, Frank. 2002. Culture of Fear: Risk Taking and the Morality of Low Expectation. New York: Continuum International. Goldstein, Kurt. 1971. Selected Papers/Ausgewählte Schriften. Edited by Aron Gurwitsch, Else M. Goldstein Haudek, and William E. Haudek. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1934. Der Aufbau des Organismus. Einführung in die Biologie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Erfahrungen am kranken Menschen. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. English edition: Goldstein, Kurt. 1995. The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived from Pathological Data in Man. New York: Zone Books. Grøn, Arne. 2008. The Concept of Anxiety in Søren Kierkegaard. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Trans. J. B. L. Knox. Heidegger, M. 1967. Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Klostermann. English edition: Heidegger, M. 1962. Being and Time (trans: John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson). London: SCM Press. Kierkegaard, Søren. 1980. The Concept of Anxiety. Trans. R. Thomte. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Le Loyer, Pierre. 1608. Discours et histoires des spectres, visions et apparitions des esprits, anges, démons et âmes se montrant visibles aux hommes. Paris: Angers, in 4°. Linke, Uli, and Danielle Taana Smith, eds. 2009. Cultures of Fear: A Critical Reader. London/ New York: Palgrave. Mentzos, Stavros. 1982. Neurotische Konfliktverarbeitung. Berlin: Fischer. Micali, Stefano. 2016. Angst als Erschütterung. In Angst. Philosophische, psychopathologische und psychoanalytische Zugänge. Ed. S. Micali and T. Fuchs. Freiburg & München: Karl Alber. 28–55. ———. 2020. Tra l’altro e se stessi. Milano: Mimesis. Pippin, Robert. 1997. Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Plessner, Helmuth. 1928. Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. Einleitung in die philosophische Anthropologie. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Propp, Vladimir. 1968. Morphology of the Folktale. Trans. Laurence Scott, revised Louis A. Wagner. Austin: University of Texas Press. Sartre, Jean Paul. 1943. L’être et le néant. Paris: Gallimard. English edition: Sartre, Jean Paul. 1984. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (trans: Hazel E. Barnes). New York: Washington Square Press. Schrenk, Friedemann. 1997. Die Frühzeit des Menschen. In Der Weg zum Homo sapiens. München: Beck. Seyfarth, Robert M., Dorothy L.  Cheney, and Peter Marler. 1980. Vervet monkey alarm calls: Semantic communication in a free-ranging primate. Animal Behaviour 28: 1070–1094. Tanner, J.E., and R.W. Byrne. 1993. Concealing facial evidence of mood: Perspective-taking in a captive gorilla? Primates 34: 451–457. Theunissen, Michael. 1997. Anthropologie und Theologie bei Kierkegaard. In Kierkegaard Revisited: Proceedings from the Conference, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Jon Stewart, 177–190. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Tomasello, M. 1999. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tomasello, Michael, and Michael Jeffrey Farrar. 1986. Joint attention and early language. Child Development 57: 1454–1463. Tomasello, M., and A.C. Kruger. 1992. Joint attention on actions: acquiring verbs in ostensive and non-ostensive contexts. Journal of Child Language 19: 311–333. Uexküll Jakob von. 1934. Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen: Ein Bilderbuch unsichtbarer Welten. Berlin: Springer. English edition: Uexküll, Jakob von. 2010. A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning (trans: Joseph D.  O’Neil). Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press. Visker, Rudi. 2004. The Inhuman Condition. Dordrecht: Springer.

Chapter 2

Anxiety Between Terror and Fear

1  Terror and Radical Strangeness In Sein und Zeit, Heidegger does not investigate terror in its relation to anxiety, but rather to fear: terror is conceived of as a qualified intensification of fear. Heidegger here uses the term Entsetzen, which is translated into English as “terror” (Heidegger 1962, p. 182), into French as “terreur” (Heidegger 1964, trans. by Rudolf Boehm and Alphonse de Waelhens; Heidegger 1986, trans. by François Vezin), into Italian as “terrore” (Heidegger 1976, p. 181), into Spanish as “espanto” (Heidegger 1997, p. 146). Heidegger’s investigation of the phenomena of fear (Furcht) is without any doubt very complex. He emphasizes the co-belonging and intertwining of three structural aspects: “(I) that in the face of which we fear (Wovor der Furcht)”, “(2) fearing (das Fürchten)”, “and (3) that about which we fear (Worum der Furcht)” (Heidegger 1962, p. 179). By inquiring into fear, he intends to exemplify the structural aspects of the Befindlichkeit in general. In his analysis of the first structural aspect alone (Wovor der Furcht), Heidegger highlights six different features in order to describe how something threatening comes to us. It is not uncommon in philosophy that the (over)complexity of the analysis conceals the (over)simplicity of its underlying presupposition. It is noteworthy that Heidegger exclusively considers external threats in relation to fear: the object of fear is something threatening we encounter within the world: “That in the face of which [Wovor] we fear, the ‘fearsome’, is in every case something which we encounter within-the-world and which may have either readiness-to-hand, presence-at-hand, or Dasein-with as its kind of Being” (Heidegger 1962, p. 176).1 1  “Das Wovor der Furcht, das ‘Furchtbare’, ist jeweils ein inner-weltlich Begegnendes von der Seinsart des Zuhandenen, des Vorhandenen oder des Mitdaseins” (Heidegger 1967, p. 140). This structural aspect of fear is primarily investigated in relation to the notion of something threatening: one is exposed to something detrimental coming closer: “That which is detrimental, as something that threatens us, is not yet within striking distance, but it is coming close. In such a drawing-close, the detrimentality radiates out, and therein lies its threatening character. This drawing-close is

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From Heidegger’s perspective, I cannot stricto sensu be afraid of myself. Only in anxiety does Being-in-the-world have the possibility of being “anguished” by itself: “That about which anxiety is anxious reveals itself as that in the face of which it is anxious—namely, Being-in-the world” (Heidegger 1962, p.  176).2 It is certainly legitimate to ask whether it is appropriate to introduce a differentiation of this kind that links fear to external threats and anxiety to self-relation. Is this distinction phenomenologically accurate? Or, on the contrary, is it an artificial construction and, eventually, an oversimplification? Does not madness terrify us? Is an underlying terror towards oneself not at work in madness? If terror is based on fear, how could it be possible to be terrified by oneself in this case? Once this problematic aspect of his analysis of terror—which relies on a rigid dichotomous approach to the phenomena of anxiety and fear, which are seen as opposed to each other—has been highlighted, one may profit from Heidegger’s distinctions concerning the affects of fright (Erschrecken), horror (Grauen), and terror (Entsetzen). If the character of suddenness (plötzlich) is combined with the imminent onset of something threatening and known, we experience alarm (Erschrecken). If we are dealing with something uncanny and radically strange, then we have the experience of dread (Grauen). If what is radically alien comes to us suddenly, we are terrified (entsetzt): Bringing-close close by, belongs to the structure of the threatening as encounterable. If something threatening breaks in suddenly upon concernful Being-in-the-world (something threatening in its ‘not right away, but any moment’), fear becomes alarm [Erschrecken]. So, in what is threatening we must distinguish between the closest way in which it brings itself close, and the manner in which this bringing-close gets encountered—its suddenness. That in the face of which we are alarmed is proximally something well known and familiar. But if, on the other hand, that which threatens has the character of something altogether unfamiliar, then fear becomes dread [Grauen]. And where that which threatens is laden with dread, and is at the same time encountered with the suddenness of the alarming, then fear becomes terror [Entsetzen].3 (Heidegger 1962, pp. 181–182)

within what is close by. Indeed, something may be detrimental in the highest degree and may even be coming constantly closer; but if it is still far off, its fearsomeness remains veiled. If, however, that which is detrimental draws close and is close by, then it is threatening: it can reach us, and yet it may not. As it draws close, this ‘it can, and yet in the end it may not’ becomes aggravated. We say, ‘It is fearsome’” (Heidegger, 1962, pp. 179–180). The constitutive uncertainty of impending threats aggravates our fearing. 2  “Das, worum die Angst sich ängstet, enthüllt sich als das, wovor sie sich ängstet: das In-der-Welt-­ sein.” (Heidegger 1967, p. 188) 3  “Damit ergeben sich verschiedene Seinsmöglichkeiten des Fürchtens. Zur Begegnisstruktur des Bedrohlichen gehört die Näherung in der Nähe. Sofern ein Bedrohliches in seinem »zwar noch nicht, aber jeden Augenblick« selbst plötzlich in das besorgende In-der-Welt-sein hereinschlägt, wird die Furcht zum Erschrecken. Am Bedrohlichen ist sonach zu scheiden: die nächste Näherung des Drohenden und die Art des Begegnens der Näherung selbst, die Plötzlichkeit. Das Wovor des Erschreckens ist zunächst etwas Bekanntes und Vertrautes. Hat dagegen das Bedrohliche den Charakter des ganz und gar Unvertrauten, dann wird die Furcht zum Grauen. Und wo nun gar ein Bedrohendes im Charakter des Grauenhaften begegnet und zugleich den Begegnischarakter des Erschreckenden hat, die Plötzlichkeit, da wird die Furcht zum Entsetzen. (Heidegger 1967, pp. 141–142)

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I intend to exemplify the experience of terror (Entsetzen) as an encounter with something radically destabilizing and unpredictable through three extreme situations.4 These scenes manifest the helplessness associated with the encounter of the Other out of our control. This Other can be appropriately characterized by the following adjectives: unpredictable, unavoidable and overwhelming. As we will see in relation to a remarkable scene from The Turn of the Screw, the encounter with the Other eludes Heidegger’s distinction between an external threat within the world and an authentic dimension of the self-relation, where a gnostic silence of the world reigns (see Chapter 3, Sect. 6).5 Let us start with the situation imagined by Lacan, in which he—not completely accidentally—wears a shamanic mask: For those who weren’t there, I’ll recall the fable, the apologue, the amusing image I briefly set out before you. Myself donning the animal mask with which the sorcerer in the Cave of the Three Brothers is covered, I pictured myself faced with another animal, a real one this time, taken to be gigantic for the sake of the story, a praying mantis. Since I didn’t know which mask I was wearing, you can easily imagine that I had some reason not to feel reassured in the event that, by chance, this mask might have been just what it took to lead my partner into some error as to my identity. The whole thing was well underscored by the fact that, as I confessed, I couldn’t see my own image in the enigmatic mirror of the insect’s ocular globe.6 (Lacan 2014, p. 5)

The description of this scene is to be found in the famous Seminar X “L’angoisse” (“Anxiety”). It explicitly refers to a previous session held on 4 April 1962 as part of the seminar on identification (Lacan 2003). Here, Lacan elaborates this “amusing image” to show that the absence of an object of anxiety is essentially linked to the fact that anxiety should originally be understood as “the sensation of the other’s desire” (“la sensation du désir de l’Autre”), a desire that always remains unfathomable. We are dominated by the desire of the other, without being able to know the object of his/her profound desire: hence the instability of the subject.

4  I distance myself from Heidegger’s interpretation of terror also in respect to a temporal aspect: perhaps even more than suddenness, unpredictability essentially characterizes the experience of terror. 5  It is well-known that Habermas defines Heidegger’s notion of Dasein’s authenticity in terms of Sein zum Tode as an expression of “protestantism at the zero point of secularization” (Habermas 1977, 169). I am tempted to correct Habermas’s reading: the notion of Sein zum Tode is an expression of Gnosticism on grade zero of secularization: concerning Heidegger’s acosmism and his relation to Gnosticism see the classical studies of Hans Jonas (1958) and Susan Taubes (1954). 6  “Pour ceux qui n’étaient pas là, je rappelle la fable, l’apologue, l’image amusante que j’en avais dressée devant vous pour un instant. Moi-même revêtant le masque animal dont se couvre le sorcier de la grotte dite des Trois Frères, je m’étais imaginé devant vous en face d’un autre animal, un vrai celui-là, supposé géant pour l’occasion, une mante religieuse. Comme, le masque que je portais, je ne savais pas quel il était, vous imaginez facilement que j’avais quelque raison de n’être pas rassuré, pour le cas où, par hasard, ce masque n’aurait pas été impropre à entraîner ma partenaire dans quelque erreur sur mon identité. La chose était bien souligné par ceci, que j’avais ajouté, que je ne voyais pas ma propre image dans le miroir énigmatique du globe oculaire de l’insecte.” (Lacan 2004, p. 14)

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It is not my intention to deepen Lacan’s interpretation of anxiety centered on the question asked in a foreign language: “che vuoi?” (“What do you want?”). Rather, I am interested in analyzing the conditions of the encounter in order to better understand the intertwining of terror, fear, and anxiety outlined above. The tension between these features is related to the mismatch between the time of the narration and the time of the action. The text is elaborated in such a way as to allow Lacan to describe the form of self-relation in his encounter with the praying mantis: that is, he has time and, therefore, has the possibility of feeling anxiety (he can anticipate the situation; he can also imagine the worst-case scenario). If we only consider the time of action, there would be no anxiety: if one suddenly finds oneself in front of a huge, unpredictable praying mantis, one would rather be terrified (“entsetzt”). The circumstances of this encounter with a huge mantis are particularly complex and intricate: one relates to the Other without any insurance, because one is wearing a mask whose appearance is completely unknown to oneself. It is therefore not possible to know which reactions the mask will provoke in the overwhelming Other: there is no clue by means of which to predict or to anticipate what the Other might want from me. Hence the absence of control: anxiety is here associated with the condition of being blindly exposed to the Other. In other words, it becomes impossible to take the right countermeasures. How can you act reasonably and appropriately, if you do not know how you appear to the Other and what you “mean” to the Other? Here, it is not even known how one appears to oneself since it is not possible to be reflected by the Other— the Other’s eyes cannot be used as a mirror. The situation devised by Lacan is particularly ingenious since it sophisticatedly obstructs all those modes of intercorporeal relation that spontaneously arise between me and the other. In a famous passage in the Phénoménologie de la perception (Phenomenology of Perception), Merleau-Ponty defines intercorporeality as follows: The communication or comprehension of gestures comes about through the reciprocity of my intentions and the gestures of Others, of my gestures and the intentions discernible in the conduct of other people. It is as if the other person’s intention inhabited my body and mine his.7 (Merleau-Ponty 2002, p. 185)

Through the interruption of different forms of intercorporeal communication, terror arises. The question “che vuoi?” (“what do you want?”) becomes as urgent as it is unsolvable. Certainly, it is not usual to pay attention to one’s own image reflected in other’s eyes. Yet, this possibility has a highly symbolic value: this (virtual) form of mirroring indicates one’s ability to distance oneself from the other.8 Here, it is not possible for me to further follow Lacan in his complex analysis of anxiety as a 7  “La communication ou la compréhension des gestes s’obtient par la réciprocité de mes intentions et des gestes d’autrui, de mes gestes et des intentions lisibles dans la conduite d’autrui. Tout se passe comme si l’intention d’autrui habitait mon corps ou comme si mes intentions habitaient le sien.” (Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. 215–6) 8  That a tacit identification with the other(s) serves as a secret starting point of one’s own identity is not only present in Lacan’s work, but in various theoretical frameworks, such as those of George Herbert Mead, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean Laplanche.

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signal from the Real, nor to discuss his choice of animal, which has not really fallen on the praying mantis by chance. It suffices here to show that the encounter described by Lacan terrifies us because it exposes us to a situation of helplessness (and, probably, a situation of predation) where those points of orientation on which we base our experience of the other have vanished.

2  I nsane Terror: Ghosts between Projections and Impressions Certainly, one of the reasons why spectral presences are terrifying lies in the fact that here every form of mirroring fails: any possibility of mutual recognition becomes unviable. Even the possibility of spatializing the relation with the other collapses: it becomes impossible to clearly establish the boundaries between inside and outside, both in relation to oneself and in relation to the other. The very limits of the world then become uncertain. As is well-known, night, silence and darkness are the ideal conditions for triggering this process of dedifferentiation between inside and outside. In these conditions, the boundaries between perception and imagination become blurred. It is not by chance that these are the conditions in which the atavist fear of ghosts arises. A classic literary work, Henry James’s tale The Turn of the Screw, elegantly plays with the fragility of the limits between projections and impressions.9 Here I am particularly interested in studying this fragility by focusing on a particular scene of James’s tale: that of the first extraordinary encounter experienced by the protagonist, the governess Mrs. Grose, with a mysterious man observing her from afar.

9  Maurice Blanchot rightly observes that The Turn of the Screw is so fascinating because of its evasive ambiguity: it is not possible to consider the story only as a ghost story. Neither is it legitimate to interpret it only as an expression of a Freudian drama: “When Gide discovered that The Turn of the Screw was not a story of phantoms but probably a Freudian narrative in which it is the female narrator – the governess with her passions and her visions – who, blind to herself and terrible with her lack of awareness, ends up making the innocent children live in contact with terrifying images that, without her, they would not have suspected, he was amazed and overjoyed. (But naturally a doubt remained in him that he would have liked to see dissipate.) Would this, then, be the subject of the story, to which the archbishop would no longer have any rights as author? But is this indeed the subject? Is it even the one that James consciously decided to treat? The editors of the Notebooks fasten on this anecdote to claim that the modern interpretation is not definitive, that James indeed wanted to write a ghost story, with, as postulated, the corruption of children and real apparitions. Of course, the uncanny is evoked only indirectly, and the terrifying element there is in the story, the shiver of unease that it excites, comes less from the presence of specters than from the secret disorder that results, but this is a rule for which James himself gave the formula in the preface to his ghost stories when he emphasizes ‘the importance of presenting the wonderful and the strange by limiting oneself almost exclusively to showing their repercussion on a sensibility and by recognizing that their principal element of interest consists in some strong impression that they produce and that is perceived with intensity.’” (Blanchot 2002, p. 129)

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The instability of the limits between impressions and projections is already evident at the beginning of James’ work—in that short story that motivates one of the characters, Douglas, to tell his narrative of Mrs. Grove10: THE story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case, I may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion—an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in the terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. (James 1992, p. 115)

Already in this sketchy outline of a story, Henry James subtly insists on the continuity between dream and impression, between the old house in the story and the present place of the narrator’s voice: the appearance of the apparition seems first to be a private projection of a child. But sudden terror arises due to the involvement of the mother: the apparition unexpectedly receives an intersubjective validation which destabilizes the boundaries characterizing perception in our daily life-world. Douglas then tells a story that prolongs and exacerbates the painful difficulties of preserving the boundaries between reality, imagination and madness. Perceptual experiences are not infrequently endowed with a certain ambiguity and confusion. The governess, Mrs. Grove, has several times the impression of hearing strange noises that she promptly dismisses as illusory: There had been a moment when I believed I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been another when I found myself just consciously starting as at the passage, before my door, of a light footstep. But these fancies were not marked enough not to be

 It is well-known that Henry James’s idea of The Turn of the Screw was inspired by a conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who told him a story of depraved servants “corrupting” the children they should care of. Once dead, servants’ ghosts continued their perverse work. Henry James was intrigued by this conversation as shown in this passage from the Notebooks: “Saturday, January 12th, 1895. Note here the ghost-story told me at Addington (evening of Thursday 10th), by the Archbishop of Canterbury: the mere vague, undetailed, faint sketch of it—being all he had been told (very badly and imperfectly), by a lady who had no art of relation, and no clearness: the story of the young children (indefinite number and age) left to the care of servants in an old country-house, through the death, presumably, of parents. The servants, wicked and depraved, corrupt and deprave the children; the children are bad, full of evil, to a sinister degree. The servants die (the story vague about the way of it) and their apparitions, figures, return to haunt the house and children, to whom they seem to beckon, whom they invite and solicit, from across dangerous places, the deep ditch of a sunk fence, etc.—so that the children may destroy themselves, lose themselves, by responding, by getting into their power. So long as the children are kept from them, they are not lost; but they try and try and try, these evil presences, to get hold of them. It is a question of the children ‘coming over to where they are.’ It is all obscure and imperfect, the picture, the story, but there is a suggestion of strangely gruesome effect in it. The story to be told—tolerably obviously—by an outside spectator, observer” (James 1981, pp. 178–9). Henry James indirectly refers to the conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury also in the Preface to The Aspern Papers (James 2014).

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thrown off, and it is only in the light, or the gloom, I should rather say, of other and subsequent matters that they now come back to me. (James 1992, pp. 124-125)

The fear of ghosts “plays” with the evanescence of sensory appearances which do not form any coherent synesthetic unity. On the contrary, if the appearances of the apparitions are consistently “confirmed”, in time fear turns into terror. If one not only recognizes the presence of something radically alien and uncanny, but it is in turn also recognized by the “Other”, then one has already abandoned the adherence to the reassuring ground of common sense: prior to this extraordinary experience, terror is accompanied by anxiety at the onset of one’s own madness. These later experiences shed new light on past impressions that were first considered illusory and deceptive. They offer a kind of a retroactive validation of them and of the elementary suspicion of one’s own detachment from reality. The first extraordinary encounter of Mrs. Grose with the terrifying Other may be seen in light of the category of recognition. Mrs. Grose is proud of herself. She would love to have someone who sees her outstanding work with the two children. This (imaginary) person would definitely praise her for the exceptionally high quality of her care. While she is fantasizing about the well-deserved acknowledgement of the imaginary other, who would unmistakably express appreciation and admiration toward her, unexpectedly the ghostly object of her desire for recognition becomes reality: One of the thoughts that, as I don’t in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story suddenly to meet someone. Someone would appear there at the turn of a path and would stand before me and smile and approve. I didn’t ask more than that—I only asked that he should know; and the only way to be sure he knew would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome face. That was exactly present to me—by which I mean the face was—when, on the first of these occasions, at the end of a long June day, I stopped short on emerging from one of the plantations and coming into view of the house. What arrested me on the spot—and with a shock much greater than any vision had allowed for—was the sense that my imagination had, in a flash, turned real. He did stand there!—but high up, beyond the lawn and at the very top of the tower to which, on that first morning, little Flora had conducted me. (James 1992, p. 135)

Mrs. Grose is dismayed for different reasons. The first concerns the sense of reality as such: the imagination of the other—the object of her desire for recognition—has suddenly become perception, living present. The adherence to common sense starts to vacillate since the strict boundaries between two different intentional acts—perception and imagination—become unstable, if not indistinguishable. Another reason for her dismay concerns the aura of this strange apparition. The person who appears to her is not somebody who reassures or admires her. Rather something uncanny happens. By observing her from a distance, this man transforms the whole surrounding: Mrs. Grose has the painful feeling that he emanates an atmosphere of death. It was as if, while I took in— what I did take in—all the rest of the scene had been stricken with death. I can hear again, as I write, the intense hush in which the sounds of evening dropped. The rooks stopped cawing in the golden sky and the friendly hour lost, for the

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Mrs. Grove is unable to recognize the man staring at her from afar. His physiognomy is not familiar to her. Indeed, she is sure she has never seen him before. The man appears in a completely unexpected place. The appearance of the stranger, initially desired but now a source of dismay, takes place in the house where she lives. The fact that the stranger occupies the intimate place of her home is highly significant: he destabilizes the order—her order—from within. It is also critical to emphasize the importance of the time factor: the duration of the experience plays a decisive role indeed. Over time, his unexpected appearance becomes a source of terror both for the reflective gaze of the narrating voice and for the reader: We were confronted across our distance quite long enough for me to ask myself with intensity who then he was and to feel, as an effect of my inability to say, a wonder that in a few instants more became intense. The great question, or one of these, is, afterwards, I know, with regard to certain matters, the question of how long they have lasted. Well, this matter of mine, think what you will of it, lasted while I caught at a dozen possibilities, none of which made a difference for the better, that I could see, in there having been in the house—and for how long, above all?—a person of whom I was in ignorance. It lasted while I just bridled a little with the sense that my office demanded that there should be no such ignorance and no such person. It lasted while this visitant, at all events,—and there was a touch of the strange freedom, as I remember, in the sign of familiarity of his wearing no hat,—seemed to fix me, from his position, with just the question, just the scrutiny through the fading light, that his own presence provoked. We were too far apart to call to each other, but there was a moment at which, at shorter range, some challenge between us, breaking the hush, would have been the right result of our straight mutual stare. He was in one of the angles, the one away from the house, very erect, as it struck me, and with both hands on the ledge. So I saw him as I see the letters I form on this page; then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add to the spectacle, he slowly changed his place—passed, looking at me hard all the while, to the opposite corner of the platform. Yes, I had the sharpest sense that during this transit he never took his eyes from me, and I can see at this moment the way his hand, as he went, passed from one of the crenelations to the next. He stopped at the other corner, but less long, and even as he turned away still markedly fixed me. He turned away; that was all I knew. (James 1992, p. 136)

Terror occurs here as a result of a complex interplay between different perspectives. At first it may even seem excessive to speak of terror in this case. The governess certainly reports a strange, unusual phenomenon. One could say that Mrs. Grose experiences something uncanny (unheimlich), rather than terrifying. It is in fact uncanny that a man suddenly appears at the very moment when the recognition of the other is fervidly desired. It is uncanny that a stranger unexpectedly appears in the place where one lives. But on closer inspection, if one considers the context properly, it is more appropriate to say that the story provokes a sense of terror: terror conveys the fact that Mrs. Grose feels invasively fixed in the gaze of a person who emanates an aura of death. Terror also accounts for the governess’ retrospective gaze, for the repetition of a trauma in the shadow of a dark future that at the beginning of the narration was still

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vague and ambiguous. Also with the help of the narrator’s voice, the reader is able to “inhabit” the governess’s gaze, to use Merleau-Ponty’s above mentioned expression related to the notion of intercorporeality. The reader is informed, from the outset, that dreadful facts about ghosts will be narrated. And so it becomes easy to “inhabit” the governess’ retrospective gaze: one senses her insane terror in retracing those experiences that will acquire their full intelligibility in the course of the narration. The adjective “insane” may be understood in the literal sense: in the retrospective gaze of the narrating voice, the reader feels the anxiety related to the emergence of her (eventual) madness in a latent but clear way. James’ entire story may be read as a fuga on the fluidity of the boundaries between reality, phantasy and madness.

3  Blind Terror and the Inhuman Gaze The third terror situation that I intend to examine concerns the experience of “selection” in concentration camps. In his book Die Ordnung des Terrors (“The Order of Terror”), Wolfgang Sofsky closely describes two main forms of selection. The first involves a parade of naked prisoners who are examined by those who, seated, verify their “suitability”. During the second type of selection all prisoners stand immobile, while the designated person walks around them to decide their fate (Sofsky 1993, pp. 356–385). But how does the prisoner live the selection? How is one supposed to behave in these moments? Is it possible to preserve a sense of initiative and agency during these extreme situations? Or are the prisoners damned to radical passivity? These questions are particularly important because it is imperative to avoid any stereotypical account of the conditions of the prisoners in the exterminations camps. Reducing the Lagers to an experiment aimed at creating a new form of naked life in the deranged form of a Muselmann11 is as suggestive and seductive for bio-political accounts as it is problematic, even for an approach that relies on the notion of paradigm (such as in Agamben’s interpretation of Auschwitz).12

 “Their life is short, but their number is endless: they, the Muselmanner, the drowned form the backbone of the camp, an anonymous mass, continually renewed and always identical, of non men who march and labour in silence, the divine spark dead within them, already too empty to really suffer. One hesitates to call them living: one hesitates to call their death death, in the face of which they have no fear, as they are too tired to understand.” (Levi 1959, p. 103) 12  Here I refer to the debates on Agamben’s work Quel che resta di Auschwitz (Remnants of Auschwitz, 1998) where he takes over and radicalizes Arendt’s and Levi’s idea of the lager as a huge, ghastly socio-biological experiment. Agamben’s account has been criticized both of his one-­ sided approach to the concept of extermination camp and for his lack of historical accuracy (Mesnard and Kahan 2001). Agamben’s reply to these criticisms is to be found in Signatura rerum (2008/2009). In his view, the great majorities of the objections against his analysis do not understand the crucial point, that is the nature of his methodological research based on the notion of paradigm. In my view, the problem is that the borders between ideal-typical research, establishment of new paradigms and projection of ideological stereotypes into the historical events are quite blurring.

11

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Zygfryd Rębylas gives one of the most impressive testimonies of selection experiences. Ryn and Rlodziński report it in their volume Auschwitz-Heft: The selection is something terrible, a tremendous spiritual (seelischer) struggle that is difficult to reproduce and describe (…). Even now, when I think back on it, my blood freezes in my veins and I get goosebumps. At the time of this roll call, I thought about my future fate. Would my appearance, my facial expression not please the person responsible for the selection and I would be sent to the gallows or would a lucky chance be granted to me. I think no, I am sure that I was not indifferent to whether I died or not. The ominous words ‘any number’ had their tragic, deadly meaning, there would inevitably be victims, but we did not know which of us would be hit. No reasonable person and no scientist will ever understand what that means: selection, selection for death. He will not be able to empathize with the prisoner, with the struggle for life that rages within him. The worst moment is when the person responsible for the selection falls on him, when it comes to life or death, when one waits for a wink of the finger or for the word raus that determines whether one will die or stay alive. When the person responsible for the selection came toward us, none of us knew what to do and how to behave. Should you boldly return his murderous glance, which normally meant that you could say goodbye to life? Or should you lower your eyes and avoid his? Should you even plead for pity, beg with your eyes for mercy, implore him for the gift of one’s life? Because sometimes it was the right decision if you stared insolently right at them, straight into their criminal face. And other times, it was the wrong thing to do. But who could look into their minds? It was an internal mental measuring of strength, much worse and more difficult than any fight at the front, and it left in us ineradicable deep marks and an incurable emotional (seelisches) trauma. I think I was in the sixth row of this roll call when they came up to me, and I apparently remained calm, as if I didn’t mind my future fate, but my legs were trembling, I felt fear (Angst), as once in Auschwitz. I was completely conscious. It was clear to me that my fate hung in the balance, was being decided that very second. Suddenly everything around me started to whirl. I glanced briefly into his eyes, then to the ground, looked once again at the SS men who were facing me. I felt their glance boring into my depths. My thoughts congealed, seemed as though paralyzed. For a moment, I didn’t know what was happening around me, whether their eyes were still upon me, if they were even still standing there, right in front of me. I can’t say what went on inside my brain. But then, not sure when, the world had me back again, everything around me swayed, the whole Lager, the mountain peaks all around, revolved around the camp like in a carousel. They had passed me and the two comrades next to me—I breathed a sigh of relief: I got away this time too.13 (Ryn and Klondinzki 1987, p. 310)

 “Die Selektion ist etwas Entsetzliches, ein ungeheurer seelischer Kampf, der schwer wiederzugeben und zu beschreiben ist (…). Noch jetzt stockt mir das Blut in den Adern, wenn ich daran zurückdenke, und ich bekomme eine Gänsehaut. Damals bei diesem Appell dachte ich daran, wie wohl mein weiteres Schicksal verlaufen würde. Würde mein Äußeres, mein Gesichtsausdruck dem Selektierer nicht gefallen und ich an den Galgen gebracht oder würde mir ein glücklicher Zufall beschieden sein (…). Ich glaube, nein ich bin sicher, dass es mir nicht gleichgültig war, ob ich sterben sollte oder nicht (…). Die unheilverkündenden Worte‚ ‘beliebige Anzahl’ hatten ihre tragische, tödliche Bedeutung, es würde unweigerlich Opfer geben, aber wen von uns es treffen würde, wussten wir nicht. Kein Mensch, der seine fünf Sinne beisammen hat und auch kein Wissenschaftler wird jemals begreifen, was das heißt: Selektion, Auswahl für den Tod. Er wird sich nicht in den Häftling einfühlen können, in den Kampf ums Leben, der in ihm tobt.

13

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In some way, this scene recalls the encounter with the immense praying mantis imagined by Lacan. The prisoner is subject and subjugated to a sovereign, inhuman and unpredictable gaze. How should one behave? If one surrenders to despair, one will die. But what to do? Shall one challenge the other’s gaze? Zygfryd Rębylas does not avoid the gaze of the officer but neither does he stare at him, diverting his gaze immediately elsewhere (to the SS men). Without knowing how, he is able to meet the gaze of the person who is the master of his life without indisposing him. However, consciousness cannot hold this tension any longer. For a long moment, it is completely dark: awareness of the surrounding environment, of oneself and of the other(s) vanishes. And then Zygfryd Rębylas returns to himself and to the world. One should bear in mind that he must have been able to remain standing during that moment of terror. He did not show any evident weakness, otherwise he would probably have been victim of the selection. Here we have a paradigmatic experience of blind terror. The expression “blind terror” is not accidental: blindness is an integral part of a traumatic event. During the culminating moment of terror, a loss of consciousness occurs: a black-out, that makes any process of objectification and identification impossible. In order to fully understand Zygfryd Rębylas’ terror, it is necessary to also specify the mutual exchange of gazes during the selection from the point of view of the “perpetrator.” Who has read Se questo è un uomo (“If this is a man”) cannot forget the passage where Primo Levi must take a chemistry exam under almost dreamlike circumstances. Primo Levi meticulously describes his meeting with Doktor

Der schlimmste Moment ist, wenn der Blick des Selektierenden auf ihn fällt, wenn es um Leben oder Tod geht, wenn man auf einen Wink des Fingers oder auf das Wort raus wartet, von dem es abhängt, ob man sterben oder am Leben bleiben wird. Wenn der Selektierende auf uns zu trat, wusste keiner von uns, wozu er sich entschließen und wie er sich verhalten sollte. Sollte man seinen mörderischen Blick dreist erwidern, was normalerweise hieß, auf das Leben zu pfeifen, oder sollte man den Blick senken und seinen Augen ausweichen, oder sollte man gar um Erbarmen heischen, mit den Blicken um die Gnade flehen, dass einem das Leben geschenkt würde? Manchmal war es nämlich richtig, wenn man ihnen unverfroren in ihr Verbrechergesicht schaute, ein andermal war es wieder falsch. Aber wer konnte ihnen schon hinter die Stirn schauen? Es war ein inneres, seelisches Kräftemessen, sehr viel schlimmer und schwerer als jeder Kampf an der Front, und es hat in uns unauslöschliche tiefe Spuren und ein unheilbares seelisches Trauma hinterlassen. Ich glabe, ich stand bei diesem Appell in der sechsten Reihe, als sie auf mich kamen, und ich blieb scheinbar ruhig, so als würde mir mein weiteres Schicksal nichts ausmachen, doch meine Beine zitterten, ich spürte Angst, wie einmal in Auschwitz. Ich war bei vollem Bewusstsein, und es war mir klar, dass sich in diesem Augenblick mein Lebensschicksal entschied. Auf einmal begann sich alles um mich zu drehen, ich blickte ihm kurz in den Augen und dann wieder zu Boden, noch einmal zu den SS-Männern, die mir gegenüberstanden. Ich spürte ihre Blicke bis ins Innerste, und meine Gedanken waren wie gelähmt, ich wusste einen Moment lang nicht, was um mich herum geschah und ob ihr Blick noch auf mir ruhte, oder ob sie überhaupt noch vor mir standen; ich kann nicht sagen, was sich in meinem Kopf abspielte. Irgendwann hatte mich die Welt dann wieder, alles um mich herum schwankte, das ganze Lager, die Berggipfel ringsum drehten sich um das Lager, wie in einem Karussell. Sie waren an mir und den beiden Kameraden neben mir vorbeigegangen—ich atmete erleichtert auf: Auch diesmal war ich davongekommen.” (Ryn and Klodziński 1987, p. 310)

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Pannwitz. This meeting is so significant for him that he goes so far as to say that the secret of Nazism is hidden in Doktor Pannwitz’s gaze: Pannwitz is tall, thin, blond; he has the eyes, the hair, and the nose that all Germans ought to have, and sits formidably behind an elaborate desk. I, Häftling 174517, stand in his office, which is a real office, shining, clean, and orderly, and it seems to me that I would leave a dirty stain if I were to touch anything. When he finished writing, he raised his eyes and looked at me. Since that day, I have thought about Doktor Pannwitz many times and in many ways. I have asked myself about his inner workings as a man; how he filled his time, outside of the Polymerization Department and his Indo-Germanic conscience. Above all, when I was once more a free man, I wanted to meet him again, not out of a spirit of revenge but merely out of my curiosity about the human soul. Because that look did not pass between two men; and if I knew how to explain fully the nature of that look, exchanged as if through the glass wall of an aquarium between two beings who inhabit different worlds, I would also be able to explain the essence of the great insanity of the Third Reich. What we all thought and said of the Germans could be felt at that moment, in an immediate manner. The brain that governed those blue eyes and those manicured hands said, “This something in front of me belongs to a species that it is obviously right to suppress. In this particular case, one has first to make sure that it does not contain some useful element.”14 (Levi 1959, pp. 122–23)

Those who were subjected to the selection met the cold gaze of those who did not recognize their belonging to the human species. They were worthy of being killed just because their mere existence contaminated and threatened the Aryan race. Pannwitz’s gaze combines a utilitarian mentality (“check if this enemy/parasite/ trash could still include some useful element”) with that resolute impetus characterized by its apocalyptic nature.15 In a complex modern society with a sophisticated bureaucratic apparatus, the combination of advanced scientific knowledge and remarkable technological resources was used to suppress a class of parasitic subjects. Gas chambers are not only the extreme consequence of that syllogism which  “Pannwitz è alto, magro, biondo—ha gli occhi, i capelli e il naso come tutti i tedeschi devono averli, e siede formidabilmente dietro una complicata scrivania. Io, Häftling 174517, sto in piedi nel suo studio che è un vero studio, lucido pulito e ordinato, e mi pare che lascerei una macchia sporca dovunque dovessi toccare. Quando ebbe finito di scrivere, alzò gli occhi e mi guardò. Da quel giorno, io ho pensato al Doktor Pannwitz molte volte e in molti modi. Mi sono domandato quale fosse il suo intimo funzionamento di uomo; come riempisse il suo tempo, all’infuori della polimerizzazione e della coscienza indogermanica; soprattutto, quando io sono stato di nuovo un uomo libero, ho desiderato di incontrarlo ancora, e non già per vendetta, ma solo per una mia curiosità dell’anima umana. Perché quello sguardo non corse fra due uomini; e se io sapessi spiegare a fondo la natura di quello sguardo, scambiato come attraverso la parete di vetro di un acquario tra due esseri che abitano mezzi diversi, avrei anche spiegato l’essenza della grande follia della terza Germania. Quello che tutti noi dei tedeschi pensavamo e dicevamo si percepì in quel momento in modo immediato. Il cervello che sovrintendeva a quegli occhi azzurri e a quelle mani coltivate diceva: ‘Questo qualcosa davanti a me appartiene a un genere che è ovviamente opportuno sopprimere. Nel caso particolare, occorre prima accertarsi che non contenga qualche elemento utilizzabile;’” (Levi 2005, pp. 175–6). 15  “Rather, the struggle against the Jews in redemptive anti-Semitism assumed an apocalyptic dimension. The redemption of the people, the ‘race’ and the ‘Aryan’ humanity could only be achieved through the extermination of the Jews. A victory for the Jews was still conceivable - and could mean the end of people, ‘race’ and ‘Aryan’ humanity.” (Friedländer 2007, p. 29) 14

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finds its major premise in the idea “every stranger is an enemy” (Levi), they are also an expression of an apocalyptic violence, of a peculiar ontological frenzy: the world must enjoy a purified condition as if no Jew had ever set foot on Aryan soil, as if the purity of Aryan blood had never been contaminated. There was a firm resoluteness (Entschlossenheit) in eradicating any trace of enemy’s existence. We should bear in mind the prisoners’ initial disbelief with respect to this “peculiar frenzy”. Shlomo Venezia expresses this disbelief in an exemplary way in a report on his activities in a group of Sonderkommando published in 2007. Shlomo Venezia survives the first selection that takes place immediately after his arrival: out of the 2500 Jewish deportees only 648 men and women are considered “suitable.”16 He came to Auschwitz with his mother and sisters, from whom he was separated as soon as he arrived. During his early days in the Lager, he tries to obtain information about his family and especially about his mother: I never stopped thinking about my mother and as soon as I heard someone speaking Ladino, our Hebrew-Spanish dialect, I approached him to ask if he knew where she might be. He gently told me not to worry, I’d know the next day, and meanwhile it was better not to ask myself too many questions. But this reply didn’t satisfy me, so I went over to a prisoner who spoke Yiddish and asked him in German, “Wo sind meine Mutter und meine Schwestern?” “Where are my mother and my sisters?” He didn’t reply, and just took me by the arm and led me to the window. From there, he pointed at the Crematorium chimney. I stared, disbelievingly, at what he was showing me and I realized he was telling me in Yiddish, “All the people who didn’t come with you are already being freed from this place.” I looked at him skeptically, without really believing him. We didn’t exchange another word. I can’t say I felt anything very much. It was so inconceivable that they would have brought us here just to burn us on arrival; I merely thought that he wanted to frighten me, as people do with rookies. So I decided to wait until the next day and to see for myself. But actually, he was absolutely right.17 (Venezia 2009, p. 32)

Venezia’s testimony shows the disproportion between the unheard truth of the facts and the skeptical, silent response of those who hear this truth for the first time.

 “The archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum indicate that, after the selection, out of the 2500 Jews deported at the same time as Shlomo, 320 men entered the camp with identity numbers going from 182,440 to 182,759, and three hundred and twenty-eight women, given numbers from 76,856 to 77,183. All the others were immediately sent to their deaths in the gas chambers.” (Venezia 2007, p. 36) 17  “Non smettevo di pensare a mia madre e appena sentii qualcuno parlare ladino, il nostro dialetto ebraico-spagnolo, mi avvicinai per chiedergli se sapeva dove poteva essere. Mi rispose con gentilezza di non preoccuparmi, che l’avrei scoperto l’indomani e che nell’attesa era meglio non farsi domande. La sua risposta non mi convinse, così mi accostai a un altro prigioniero che parlava yiddish a cui chiesi in tedesco: ‘Wo sind meine Mutter und meine Schwestern?’, ‘Dove sono mia madre e le mie sorelle?’ Non mi rispose, semplicemente mi prese per il braccio e mi portò alla finestra per mostrarmi con il dito la ciminiera del Crematorio. Fissai incredulo ciò che mi indicava e intesi quello che mi stava dicendo in yiddish: ‘Tutti quelli che non sono con voi si stanno già liberando di questo posto.’ Non ci scambiammo nessun’altra parola. Lo fissai, scettico, senza credergli davvero. Era talmente inconcepibile che ci avessero portato fin lì per bruciarci appena arrivati! Pensai che forse voleva solo spaventarmi, come si fa con i nuovi venuti e quindi decisi di aspettare il giorno dopo e controllare io stesso. Aveva, invece, pienamente ragione.” (Venezia 2007 2007, pp. 59–60) 16

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Silence expresses the impossibility of relating to what exceeds one’s own expectation and imagination, that which is simply impossible. It is as if that silence had betrayed incredulous questions: how can that smoke be the remains of those I love, of those gave life to me? How is it possible to be killed without having done anything wrong? How could someone be killed after they were made to travel thousands of kilometers by train? The nature of the exchange of gazes occurring between prisoners and the SS during the selection is not intelligible, if one does not consider these circumstances: “But who could look into their minds?” (Zygfryd Rębylas). So far, we have considered terror through three different scenes. In the first, a gigantic praying mantis is met without any safeguard. All forms of mutual recognition which guarantee control over the situation have been put out of play. In the second instance, we analyzed a key scene from The Turn of the Screw: while the governess, Mrs. Grove, strongly (insanely?) desires to be recognized for her excellent work performance, there suddenly appears an uncanny stranger observing her from her home. The unknown man, from whom an atmosphere of death emanates, stares at her in a cold and enigmatic way and then vanishes into thin air. In the third scene, we examined the mutual exchange of gazes between the prisoners and the SS officials during the selection in the extermination camps. The prisoner, exhausted from impossible living conditions, had to face a completely unpredictable situation of maximum asymmetry, the effects of which were fatal. Zygfryd Rębylas is seized by a blind terror in which the very consciousness of the world, of himself and of others disappeared. In all three cases, terror has been described in terms of an encounter involving complex dynamics of recognition and misrecognition. But is it legitimate to address terror only in light of an extraordinary encounter understood in terms of recognition? Should terror necessarily be related to an encounter with radical alterity? And which form will this event take over time? How does this event shape one’s future life? This last question may be reformulated as follows: how should the relation between a past traumatic event and anxiety be understood?

4  About the Actuality of the Past Trauma An essential element of anxiety does not manifest itself in pure terror: the caesura between oneself, the world and the other is lacking in the latter. In anxiety, a (temporal and spatial) interval remains between the subject and the destabilizing event and this interval is usually filled by imagination. In other words, in anxiety one always has the time to prepare oneself for the threatening situation. And usually, one uses this time to hike the winding paths of imagination, to weave incoherent stories, and to create improbable narratives that bridge the distance between oneself and the future (negative) event. Terror is an immediate response to a situation that exceeds one’s capacity for receptivity and endurance: one cannot relate to what is happening to oneself. The bodily expressions typical of terror show an increasing disconnection from the surrounding world: one trembles, freezes, and feels paralyzed. Our reliable symbolic

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activities which usually allow us to keep threats at a safe distance are suspended. It is as if our defense mechanisms collapse in on themselves in the face of an irruption of something which appears overwhelming and unavoidable at the same time. Like the cry of pain, the cry of terror has no descriptive value (Wittgenstein 1953, §275). In the cry of terror sounds the will to push away, almost to expel, what has already affected and destabilized us in order to create some leeway that gives initiative back to us. The cry of terror ex-presses the suspension of our ability to articulate what we are experiencing. To use Levinas’s terminology in a sense slightly different but not incompatible with his intention, the cry of terror is “saying” without “said”. The cry of terror is “saying” if we understand it as an ex-pression of being overwhelmed. It is an ex-pression confusedly directed to the (more or less distant) other—hopefully to the neighbor. Nonetheless, nothing is said through this ex-pression. If past terrifying events traumatized the subject, then they are still present. It is as if a trauma cannot be separated from the adverb of time “still”: it still influences one’s own behavior, emotions, imagination and thinking, without the subject being aware of its influence or at least of the scope of that influence. In their paper, Über den psychischen Mechanismus hysterischer Phänomene (On the psychical mechanism of hysterical phenomena), Breuer and Freud hold that trauma is not to be understood in terms of physiological causes but in relation to one affect: fright (Schreck). This point becomes particularly clear in an important passage from the lecture where they criticize Charcot’s theory for having missed a crucial difference between traumatic and non-traumatic hysteria: There is a complete analogy between traumatic paralysis and common, non-traumatic hysteria. The only difference is that in the former a major trauma has been operative, whereas in the latter there is seldom a single major event to be signalized, but rather a series of affective impressions—a whole story of suffering. But there is nothing forced in equating such a story, which appears as the determining factor in hysterical patients, with the accident which occurs in traumatic hysteria. For no one doubts any longer today that even in the case of the major mechanical trauma in traumatic hysteria what produces the result is not the mechanical factor but the affect of fright, the psychical trauma.18 (Freud 1962, pp. 30–31)

Irrespective of whether there is a singular or repeated (and enduring) trauma the fact that the person represses a past experience she cannot cope with indicates that they want to now avoid the frightening affect (experienced in the past). In the aforementioned text, Breuer and Freud almost literally echo Charcot’s definition of traumatic hysteria: paralysis manifestations of a person suffering from hysteria should be

 “Es besteht eine volle Analogie zwischen der traumatischen Lähmung und der gemeinen, nicht traumatischen Hysterie. Der Unterschied ist nur der, dass dort ein großes Trauma eingewirkt hat, während hier selten ein einziges großes Ereignis zu konstatieren ist, sondern eine Reihe von affektvollen Eindrücken; eine ganze Leidensgeschichte. Es hat aber nichts Gezwungenes, diese Leidensgeschichte, welche sich bei Hysterischen als veranlassendes Moment ergibt, mit jenem Unfall bei der traumatischen Hysterie gleichzustellen, denn es zweifelt heute niemand mehr, dass auch bei dem großen mechanischen Trauma der traumatischen Hysterie es nicht das mechanische Moment ist, welches zur Wirkung kommt, sondern der Schreckaffekt, das psychische Trauma.” (Freud 1952, p. 187)

18

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traced back to an intense emotional shock. Breuer’s and Freud’s notion of Schreck is in fact a translation of Charcot’s conception of choc.19 The influence of trauma on the development of paralysis and contractures is well-known since the works of Brodie, Russel-Reynolds, Charcot etc. … . There is no relation between the violence of the trauma and the degree of movement disorder that follows it. The emotion, the moral shock that accompanies the violence, is the essential factor. The paralysis that follows the trauma does not show itself immediately after the shock, it occurs only after a more or less long time, after a period of incubation or “meditation”, as M. Charcot called it, during which the idea of impotence of the traumatized limb grows and imposes itself on the patient’s mind.20 (Charcot et al. 1894, p. 1365)

Despite of the relevant differences between them, the perspectives of Charcot, Freud and Breuer on traumatism—but also those of Binet, Ribot and Janet—have in common one presupposition concerning the temporal order: past events continue to “act” in the field of actual consciousness. Freud even states the ​​direct causal influence of the past on the present: We can elucidate this from the picture of a foreign body, which continues to operate unceasingly as a stimulating cause of illness until it is got rid of. Cessante causa cessat effectus. […] It could only be supposed that the psychical trauma does in fact continue to operate in the subject and maintains the hysterical phenomenon, and that it comes to an end as soon as the patient has spoken about it.21 (Freud 1962, p. 30–31).

The “extraterritoriality” of the traumatic event from consciousness signifies the specific contemporaneity of its impact. It is precisely in this way that Freud’s and Breuer’s famous sentence should be understood: “the hysteric person suffers mainly from reminiscence” (“der Hysterische leide grösstentheils an Reminiscenzen”).22  Breuer and Freud intend to develop the research path initiated by Charcot by redefining the relation between traumatic hysteria and non-traumatic hysteria. In criticism of Charcot’s thesis, Breuer and Freud hold that all forms of hysteria have their source in traumatic events (Freud 1962, 30–31). 20  “L’influence du traumatisme sur la production des paralysies et des contractures est bien connue depuis les travaux de Brodie, Russel-Reynolds, Charcot etc. …. Il n’y a aucun rapport entre la violence du traumatisme et le degré du trouble moteur qui le suit. L’émotion, le choc moral qui accompagne la violence, est le facteur essentiel. La paralysie qui succède aux traumatismes ne se montre pas immédiatement après le choc, elle ne survient qu’après un temps plus ou moins long, après une période d’incubation ou « de méditation », comme l’appelait M. Charcot, durant laquelle l’idée d’impuissance du membre traumatisé grandit et s’impose à l’esprit du malade.” (Charcot et al. 1894, p. 1365) 21  “Wollen wir uns dieselbe durch das Bild des Fremdkörpers veranschaulichen. Ein solcher wirkt als reizende Krankheitsursache fort und fort, bis er entfernt ist. Cessante causa cessat effectus. […] Man muss annehmen, da jenes psychische Trauma in der Tat in dem betreffenden Individuum noch fortwirkt und das hysterische Phänomen unterhält und da es zu Ende ist, sowie sich der Patient darüber ausgesprochen hat.” (Freud 1952, p. 188) 22  “By reversing the dictum ‘cessante causa cessat effectus’ [‘when the cause ceases the effect ceases’], we may very well conclude from these observations that the determining process continues to operate in some way or other for years  - not indirectly, through a chain of intermediate causal links, but as a directly releasing cause just as a psychical pain that is remembered in waking consciousness still provokes a lachrymal secretion long after the event. Hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences” (Freud 1955a p.7, trans. modified). It is well-known that Freud will then dis19

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The second chapter of Judith Herman’s monographic study Trauma and Recovery aims at providing a systematic analysis of trauma (2015). Not too surprisingly, it bears the title “Terror”: terror indeed lies at the bottom of trauma. Trauma is not an extraordinary phenomenon for its frequency but rather for its intensity as well as for its effects.23 Certainly, one of the reasons for the remarkable success of Herman’s work Trauma and Recovery is the elaboration of a new diagnostic category: the complex post-traumatic stress disorder. This diagnostic category establishes a rigorous distinction between disturbances generated by a single event and those provoked by repeated and prolonged traumas, as in the case of the captivity of war prisoners or in that of women subjected to domestic violence for a long time. Herman investigates trauma’s terror in light of three cardinal characteristics24: hyperarousal, intrusion, and constriction.25 Although Herman’s investigation serves as a constant reference point for my analysis, I will depart from her approach to trauma in several respects. Firstly, it is necessary in my view to consider an additional characteristic in order to do justice to the complexity of this phenomenon: dissociative tendencies. Secondly, my main intention is to study traumatic events from a phenomenological perspective. Accordingly, my analysis of trauma focuses on four main characteristics: (1) intrusion; (2) numbing; (3) dissociative tendencies; (4) hypervigilance. It is crucial to emphasize that these four features are strictly intertwined, although in each specific instance of trauma one or another of them may be more prominent. I will investigate these four characteristics of trauma on the basis of clinical cases.

4.1  On Intrusion The past dominates the present. And this domination may emerge very unexpectedly. A smell or a sound may trigger uncontrolled bodily reactions in the traumatized person, such as deep agitation, tremors, and even fainting. Sometimes the particular sensations that arise need not even be similar to those experienced in the past. The intensity of a sensorial impression such as a sound may itself provoke the tance himself from a too simplistic theory of abreaction according to which it would be enough to become aware of the trauma to overcome it. 23  “Traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life. Unlike commonplace misfortunes, traumatic events generally involve threats to life or bodily integrity, or a close personal encounter with violence and death. They confront human beings with the extremities of helplessness and terror, and evoke the responses of catastrophe. According to the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, the common denominator of psychological trauma is a feeling of “intense fear, helplessness, loss of control, and threat of annihilation.” (Herman 2015, p. 33) 24  I deliberately use the term “characteristic” instead of “symptom”. The use of symptom in the field of psychiatry is very problematic from a phenomenological perspective: see Tellenbach 1956; Tatossian 1979; Kraus 1991. 25  Herman uses “constriction” and “numbing” as synonyms.

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shock.26 Sometimes only a few single, fragmentary, and over-determined sensation of the traumatic events haunts the memory of the traumatized person. This fragmentation process contributes to further increasing the emotional impact of the sensation: The intense focus on fragmentary sensation, on image without context, gives the traumatic memory a heightened reality. Tim O’Brien, a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, describes such a traumatic memory: “I remember the white bone of an arm. I remember the pieces of skin and something wet and yellow that must’ve been the intestines. The gore was horrible, and stays with me. But what wakes me up twenty years later is Dave Jensen singing ‘Lemon Tree’ as we threw down the parts.” (Herman 2015, p. 38)

Flashbacks are another striking expression of the actuality of past traumatic experiences. It is as if personal identity got stuck and eventually lost during these past events and is therefore dammed to repeat them. In cases of trauma past events do not leave the subject in peace and yet person desperately attempts different strategies to diminish their impact, for example: “trying to ‘make myself not feel it, shutting myself off’ (i.e., suppression); “looking away, trying to focus on something else” (distraction); “trying to erase it from my mind, to forget that it happened” (repression); or “distancing myself, sort of like taking myself out of what’s happening” (decentering)” (Frewen and Lanius 2015, p. 24). To use the terms deployed in contemporary research on trauma, these different strategies aim “at emotion regulation.” Different emotion regulation strategies are seen as “implicitly lessening the self-referential nature” of trauma (Frewen and Lanius 2015). Certainly, the degree of self-awareness may considerably vary in each single case. Some of these strategies completely escape the subject’s consciousness. They may also oscillate between the extremes of opposite tendencies. Pierre Janet reports a paradigmatic case which deserves to be studied in more detail: it is the famous case of a young woman, Irène, who alternates between hypermnesia and emotional

 Abram Kardiner reports the following case of a war veteran suffering from a sudden loss of consciousness. Most of the time, these fainting incidents occur gradually and are accompanied by a particular aura: in this aura, the patient recognizes the invasive sound of artillery fire: “The external environment gradually became feebler in outline, the detonation of his auditory aura more and more violent; panic seized him; he felt as though he were about to die and very often lapsed into unconsciousness. In most instances this was accompanied by violent fear and a struggle to emerge from this state; occasionally he succeeded, but more often he succumbed. Once the world came back to him, he felt a deep sense of anguish for many days and had a acute irritability to intense noises. Sometimes these noises could also cause his loss of consciousness: Loud noises occasionally threw him into a spell and often accidents that ‘almost happened’ on the street threw him into similar panics. When the patient was asked to describe the struggle against the spells, he said, ‘It is like struggling against death.’ This is a common expression used by soldiers suffering from this condition. The patient had almost a complete amnesia for the events concerning his original trauma. He stated that he was on an ammunition train at about two o’clock in the morning and was waiting for a bar rage to quiet down. He remembered that a shell came across, striking somewhere in his vicinity; nothing further could be recalled by him until he woke up in the field hospital where he was being treated by a physician. While in a hospital as a shellshocked victim, he had his first fainting spell some weeks after the shock.” (Kardiner 1941, pp. 52–53)

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amnesia.27 The young woman grew up under the most difficult circumstances: her mother suffered from severe forms of both psychasthenia and claustrophobia (with frequent hallucinations), while her father was a violent and selfish alcoholic.28 Irène shows signs of mental instability from an early age. Her instability expresses itself in eating disorders (anorexia/bulimia), in insomnia and later in frequent episodes of fainting (Janet 1911). At the age of 8, Irène has a nightmare in which she vividly experiences her mother’s death. In the wake of this nightmare, two white locks appear in Irène’s hair. Precisely in this area there occurs a loss of skin sensitivity that lasted until the time of Janet’s clinical report. Other than this, the sensitivity of her skull’s skin tissue remained normal. At the age of 23, Irène must combine her work activities with the daily (and nightly) care of her dying mother for months. Irène was already exhausted before her mother passed away. A few weeks after her mother’s death, the young woman was hospitalized at the Salpetrière Hopital in Paris. There Irène lived for many days in a dissociated state in which she continuously re-experienced the dialogues with her mother during the dramatic hours before her death: Irène’s consciousness re-­ stages the same scenes with minimal variations and increasingly precise details. It is as if the young woman is continuously re-watching the movie of past situation: The patient, who hears a buzzing in her head and suffocations, lies down on her bed; she soon loses consciousness and remains lying motionless, her eyelids quivering. Soon she makes some convulsive movements that seem to be mainly emotional expressions of the horror she feels and she begins to speak. At first she speaks very softly, soon she becomes animated, gesticulates, screams and her face shows expressions of remarkable intensity and sometimes remarkable beauty: “Oh, it is over, I will not make any more concessions, no it will be over for me too … If one knew how one suffers when one does not have one’s mother anymore … I will go to find her as she asks me … Is not it so, my little mother, it is better that I die, you told me clearly that we had to die together … Ah! Here you are, you come to look for me, it is going better with you, you look good again with your rosy cheeks, you put on your big black scarf to go with me to the Royal Square, take me away quickly … (she makes an effort to jump out of bed). You know very well that I can’t stay alone with my father … It’s one thing one can’t forgive him for, getting drunk on the day she died … No, it was too horrible, he threw up on the bed … And her eyes opening … And that mouth which open, I’ve already closed it ten times, and these legs which coming up in the air, I have to get on the bed to stretch them out … Oh! She falls on the floor … I have to work at the machine, here are sixty nights that I did not lie down … Yes, mom, I am going to finish this corset to give it away tomorrow to her, I already owe two hundred and fifty francs, I still have to spend this night …29 (Janet 1911, p. 510)

 Janet analyses this case in the essay L’amnésie et la dissociation des souvenirs par l’émotion included in his L’état mental des hystériques. 28  Janet’s description of the mother’s hallucinations is impressive: “L’agitation mentale [of Irène’s mother], déterminait chez elle une représentation très vive, tout à fait imagée des dangers qu’elle courait en restant dans sa chambre: il lui semblait que l’eau ou la neige envahissait la pièce et qu’elle était forcée de grimper sur les meubles, de nager, enfin qu’elle était étouffée contre le plafond.” (Janet 1911, pp. 507–8) 29  “La malade qui sent un bourdonnement dans la tête et des suffocations s’étend sur son lit; elle ne tarde pas à perdre connaissance et reste étendue, immobile, les paupières frémissantes. Bientôt elle a quelques mouvements convulsifs qui semblent être surtout des expressions émotionnelles de 27

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This state of hypermnesia is followed by a phase of amnesia where all vivid recollections of her mother dissolve. In this condition, Irène knows only in a very vague and abstract way that her mother died. She speaks about it as if she obtained this information from a newspaper. She is unable to recall any detail about her family– neither her mother’s agony nor her father’s intemperance. These two conditions (hypermnesia and amnesia) are opposing attempts to overcome trauma. On the one hand, the traumatic events are continuously revisited in a hallucinatory way as if repeated contact would enable her become familiar with them and thereby lessen their affective impact. On the other hand, there is the reverse effort to eradicate the presence of these unbearable events by reducing them to abstract notions. Both strategies show that consciousness cannot relate to trauma straightforwardly. Irène’s case exemplifies the “dialectic of trauma” emphasized by Judith Herman: the rhythmic alternation between two opposing responses such as intrusion and numbing is the “most characteristic feature of the post-traumatic syndromes”. (Herman 2015, p. 47): She finds herself caught between the extremes of amnesia or of reliving the trauma, between floods of intense, overwhelming feeling and arid states of no feeling at all, between ­irritable, impulsive action and complete inhibition of action. The instability produced by these periodic alternations further exacerbates the traumatized person’s sense of unpredictability and helplessness. The dialectic of trauma is therefore potentially self-perpetuating. (Herman 2015, p. 47)

4.2  Numbing The first encounter with a new phenomenon very often makes a profound impression on us. At the beginning of his book, The Body Keeps the Score (2015), the Dutch psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk reports being deeply upset by his first contact with a traumatized patient. His bewilderment was also due to personal reasons. He saw in his patient attitudes that closely reminded him of behaviors experienced l’horreur qu’elle ressent et elle commence à parler. Au début, elle parle tout bas, bientôt elle s’anime, gesticule, crie et son visage présente des expressions d’une intensité et quelquefois d’une beauté remarquable: ‘Oh, c’est fini, je ne ferai plus de concessions, non j’en finirai moi aussi … Si l’on savait comme on souffre quand on n’a plus sa mère … J’irai la retrouver comme elle me le demande … N’est-ce pas ma petite maman, il vaut mieux que je meure, tu me l’as bien dit que nous devions mourir ensemble … Ah! te voilà, tu viens me chercher, tu vas mieux, tu as repris ta bonne figure et tes joues roses, tu as mis ta grosse écharpe noire pour aller avec moi à la Place Royale, emmène-moi vite … (elle fait un effort pour sauter du lit). Tu sais bien que je ne peux pas rester seule avec mon père … C’est une chose qu’on ne peut pas lui pardonner de se saouler le jour où elle est morte … Non, c’était trop horrible, il a vomi sur le lit … Et ses yeux à elle qui s’ouvrent … Et cette bouche qui s’ouvre, je l’ai déjà fermée dix fois, et ces jambes qui reviennent en l’air, il faut que je monte sur le lit pour les étendre … Oh! elle tombe par terre … Il faut que je travaille à la machine, voilà soixante nuits que je ne me suis pas couchée … Oui, maman, je vais finir ce corset pour le donner demain, je dois déjà deux cent cinquante francs, il faut encore que je passe cette nuit …’” (Janet 1911, p. 510)

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in his own family.30 The meeting with his first patient took place in Van der Kolk’s office at the Boston Veterans Administration Clinic in 1978, where Pieter Brueghel’s painting De parabel der blinden (“The Blind leading the blind”) did not accidentally hang on a wall. His first patient was a lawyer named Tom, a veteran Marine who had participated in the Vietnam War 10 years earlier. His disturbance manifested in various ways. He experienced sudden outbursts of anger. He was terrified of going to sleep because of the recurring nightmares in which he relived the killing of the members of his unit. Alex, his best friend, was also a member of this unit. During these nightmares he vividly saw dead Vietnamese children in front of him. The same scenes of death recurrently appeared to him through invasive flashbacks. Overall, Tom considered his current life useless. He also felt profound loneliness: whoever had not been to war could not understand his condition. A sense of detachment with respect to both his loved ones and his own work became omnipresent. Alcohol became a familiar means to overcome insomnia and pain. Firstly, van der Kolk intended to improve Tom’s quality and therefore prescribed him a medicine with this specific purpose. During the following meeting, Tom confessed that he did not take the prescribed medicine: “I realized that if I take the pills and the nightmares go away,” he explained, “I will have abandoned my friends, and their deaths will have been in vain. I need to be a living memorial to my friends who died in Vietnam” (Van der Kolk 2015, p. 11). Tom’s answer can be taken as a paradigm of traumatic experience: A traumatized person has the strong tendency to become a “living memorial” of their own trauma (and this often occurs without clear awareness). In this specific case, overcoming his own trauma is experienced as a betrayal of his brothers, the members of his unit. During later sessions it became clear that war experiences insistently visited Tom in the form of nightmares and flashbacks: After about three months in country Tom led his squad on a foot patrol through a rice paddy just before sunset. Suddenly a hail of gunfire spurted from the green wall of the surrounding jungle, hitting the men around him one by one. Tom told me how he had looked on in helpless horror as all the members of his platoon were killed or wounded in a matter of seconds. He would never get one image out of his mind: the back of Alex’s head as he lay facedown in the rice paddy, his feet in the air. Tom wept as he recalled, “He was the only real friend I ever had.” Afterward, at night, Tom continued to hear the screams of his men and to see their bodies falling into the water. Any sounds, smells, or images that reminded him of the ambush (like the popping of firecrackers on the Fourth of July) made him feel just as paralyzed, terrified, and enraged as he had the day the helicopter evacuated him from the rice paddy. Maybe even worse for Tom than the recurrent flashbacks of the ambush was the memory of what happened afterward. I could easily imagine how Tom’s rage about his friend’s death had led to the calamity that followed. It took him months of dealing with his paralyzing shame before he could tell me about it. Since time immemorial veterans, like Achilles in Homer’s Iliad, have responded  Both his father and his uncle were held as prisoners during World War II. His father never spoke of his experience in the internment camp in Germany. His uncle was captured by the Japanese army in Indonesia and then worked as a slave laborer in Burma. The behavior of his uncle shows the same combination of anger and systematic silence as his own father.

30

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2  Anxiety Between Terror and Fear to the death of their comrades with unspeakable acts of revenge. The day after the ambush Tom went into a frenzy to a neighboring village, killing children, shooting an innocent farmer, and raping a Vietnamese woman. After that it became truly impossible for him to go home again in any meaningful way. How can you face your sweetheart and tell her that you brutally raped a woman just like her, or watch your son take his first step when you are reminded of the child you murdered? Tom experienced the death of Alex as if part of himself had been forever destroyed—the part that was good and honorable and trustworthy. (Van der Kolk 2015, pp. 12-13)

An essential feature of trauma consists of emotional withdrawal. An anesthetized existential condition becomes dominant.31 Van der Kolk painstakingly describes this absence of feeling and interest: Maybe the worst of Tom’s symptoms was that he felt emotionally numb. He desperately wanted to love his family, but he just couldn’t evoke any deep feelings for them. He felt emotionally distant from everybody, as though his heart were frozen and he were living behind a glass wall. That numbness extended to himself, as well. He could not really feel anything except for his momentary rages and his shame. He described how he hardly recognized himself when he looked in the mirror to shave. When he heard himself arguing a case in court, he would observe himself from a distance and wonder how this guy, who happened to look and talk like him, was able to make such cogent arguments. When he won a case he pretended to be gratified, and when he lost it was as though he had seen it coming and was resigned to the defeat even before it happened.32 (Van der Kolk 2015, p. 14)

In the case of traumatism it is important to consider this numbed condition in a broader context. Numbing must also be related to specific puzzling behaviors which are characteristic of traumatized people. One of them is certainly their tendency to put themselves in dangerous situations or to seek strongly negative experiences, such as pain. How should we understand these irrational behaviors? These phenomena can be seen as reactions aimed at eliminating the sense of emotional withdrawal and constriction which reinforces a painful detachment from reality. Traumatism in fact signifies a physiological revolution. It is as if the organism as a whole becomes unbalanced and is thrown off axis. The very relations to pleasure and unpleasantness changes. Experimental research shows how bodily reactions to pain undergo a profound transformation.33

 Soldiers who are responsible for civilian atrocities are more prone to post-traumatic disorders: Herman 2015. 32  Frewen and Lanius’s categorization of post-traumatic disorders is based on the centrality of the phenomenon of numbing (Frewen & Lanius 2015). 33  Experiments with veterans with post traumatic disturbances show that under specific conditions their pain tolerance far exceeds the normal thresholds: “Mark Greenberg, Roger Pitman, Scott Orr, and I decided to ask eight Vietnam combat veterans if they would be willing to take a standard pain test while they watched scenes from a number of movies. The first clip we showed was from Oliver Stone’s graphically violent Platoon (1986), and while it ran we measured how long the veterans could keep their right hands in a bucket of ice water. We then repeated this process with a peaceful (and long-forgotten) movie clip. Seven of the eight veterans kept their hands in the painfully cold water 30% longer during Platoon. We then calculated that the amount of analgesia produced by watching 15 minutes of a combat movie was equivalent to that produced by being injected with 31

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Although numbing is certainly significant for understanding the reasons why traumatized subjects expose themselves to unreasonable risks, other factors must also be taken into account. And this is particularly true in cases where traumatized subjects expose themselves to the very same dangerous situation that caused their trauma. Evidently we are referring here to one of the manifestations of that complex phenomenon which found expression in the Freudian formulation “repetition compulsion”. Allow me to make a methodological observation in this regard. In my view, it is impossible to attain general explanations for personal phenomena such as singular responses to one’s own trauma. And for this reason any attempt to find a single definition for a complex phenomenon such as the repetition compulsion is from the very beginning damned to fail. Nevertheless, it is possible to point out some tendencies that characterize frequently encountered responsive patterns to trauma. While in Chapter 5, Sect. 2.1, I will deal in depth with the phenomenon of acting out, here I limit myself to offering two responsive patterns that go in opposing directions. (a) Even in cases where the traumatized person did not take any risks in an unforeseeable traumatic situation, they can feel guilty for not having properly reacted. They are convinced that they have culpably overlooked potential red flags. They reproach themselves for not having taken adequate countermeasures during the attack. Guilt may then easily turn into the desire for self-punishment: the traumatized subject may re-expose themselves to the same dangerous situation out of this desire. Although the self-blame of the traumatized subject appears illegitimate when viewed from the outside, it is a phenomenon so common that it should not be neglected when considering the profound impact of traumatic event on the self-relation.34 (b) In other cases, an apparently irresponsible attitude betrays the positive will of the subject to restore their own agency. In this regard, the case of Sohaila Abdulali is particularly interesting. At the age of 17, Sohaila Abdulali was the victim of a group rape in the suburbs of Bumbay (today Mumbay). Her condition after the attack was desperate. Three years later, she wrote and published an article in a newspaper where she bravely described the torture she experienced, the police’s hostile attitude, and the social prejudices connected with rape that make the victim the culprit. Furthermore, she referred to the longstanding scars of this terrifying event. After the attack, everything became different. Daily situations become a cause for anguish and terror: It has been almost three years now, but there has not been even one day, when I have not been haunted by what happened. Insecurity, vulnerability, fear, anger, helplessness—I fight these constantly. Sometimes when I am walking on the road and hear footsteps

eight milligrams of morphine, about the same dose a person would receive in an emergency room for crushing chest pain.” (Van der Kolk 2015, p. 33) 34  This tendency is certainly favored in the case of complex trauma where the subject undergoes to continuous forms of humiliations which lead to the loss of any self-esteem and eventually to a very dehumanization process.

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If one carefully considers her general sense of acute vulnerability, it becomes even more difficult to understand why Sohaila choose to walk alone at night on the same road where the attack took place. At first sight, Sohaila’s decision seems to be completely irrational. If one considers to her own account of her motivation, however, the picture changes and a different intelligibility sets in. It also becomes clear that the above mentioned interpretations are not appropriate in this case: neither the concept of acting out nor the idea of a (hyper-)compensatory response to numbing can be applied to Sohaila Abdulali’s behavior. An explanation in terms of self-­ punishment is misleading: I’ve always hated feeling like something’s got the better of me. When this thing happened, I was at such a vulnerable age—I was seventeen—I had to prove they weren’t going to get me down. The guys who raped me told me, “If we ever find you out here alone again we’re going to get you.” And I believed them. So it’s always a bit of a terror walking up that lane, because I’m always afraid I’ll see them. In fact, no one I know would walk up that lane at night alone, because it’s just not safe. People have been mugged, and there’s no question that it’s dangerous. Yet part of me feels that if I don’t walk there, then they’ll have gotten me. And so, even more than other people, I will walk up that lane. (Abdulali, in Herman 2015, p. 29)

Her apparent reckless and irresponsible attitude ultimately shows a specific form of resilience. It expresses her urge to unconditionally protect her own sense of agency: the need not to succumb as a free subject. Choosing not to take that lane would mean the continuation of her submission to the will of those perpetrators who committed violence against her. It is as if this decision, so reasonable from the outside, would ultimately lead to a guilty passivity towards her trauma and ultimately towards her free personal development. In her eyes, this submission is even more dangerous than taking the risk of exposing herself to potential attacks.35 This interpretation of Sihaila Abdulali’s behavior is in line with Pierre Janet’s basic conception of repetition compulsion. Whereas Freud sees the death drive as “an urge in organic life to restore an earlier state of a thing” (the inorganic condition) at work in ​​repetition  Sihaila’s attitude can be compared to some behaviors considered by Herman in the fourth chapter of Trauma and Recovery which deals with captivity. Some political prisoners are ready to take considerable risks to keep or regain their belongings which remind them of their previous existence. These risks are exorbitant and excessive to an external observer. However, if one becomes aware of their specific situation, their behavior gains intelligibility. In the state of captivity, specific techniques are used in a systematic way, with the aim of bending the political prisoner’s will and annihilating their personal identity. The objective is to generate in the prisoner a sense of absolute dependence on those in power. In order to attain this goal, all possible means are employed, such as a calibrated use of deprivation in relation to prisoners’ most basic needs (from food to sleep or freedom of movement), acts of brutal violence or social isolation. These techniques are designed to lead the prisoners to betray their ideals, their friends, the members of their (national or political) community. A ring (for example, one’s wedding ring) may be the only thing that can save the prisoner from that outcome in a hostile environment. For this reason, the prisoner is willing to take any risk to regain or retain possession of their personal items.

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compulsion, Pierre Janet interprets the re-actualization of traumatic events as an (often unbalanced) attempt to regain one’s own initiative: there is a need to overcome trauma—to work it through, and thus to diminish its power over us. It is as if in the repetition compulsion one desperately desires to create a different ending to one’s own story, to orient the events in another direction. Put differently, repetition compulsion involves a pragmatic desire for successful adaptation that overcomes an unacceptable sense of helplessness. Flashbacks, recurring dreams, and the phenomenon of acting out are ultimately inhabited by this urge for liberation.36 In relation to the repetition compulsion I have mentioned different phenomena such as the hypercompensatory response to numbing, the phenomenon of acting out, a will to self-punishment, and also the will to regain one’s own initiative. As already said, it is never possible to generalize singular answers to traumatic events. It should also be added that these four phenomena are not in principle incompatible with each other. It is also possible that these different responses may (to various degrees) coexist in the same case.

4.3  Dissociative Tendencies Numbing may be a defense mechanism and fulfills an anesthetizing function in such cases. Under extreme circumstances suffering is so intense that it provokes an alteration of consciousness by which numbing ends in dissociative conditions. In some cases of terror one’s gaze becomes coldly detached: one simply records one’s own experience in a dreamlike atmosphere. This condition may express itself in complete motor paralysis. During a helpless situation, the subject sees the scene from the outside, from an out-of-body position. In other words, if one is reduced to extreme impotence, one resorts to the extrema ratio of dissociation in order to attain what is most wanted: “being elsewhere.” These perceptual changes combine with a feeling of indifference, emotional detachment, and profound passivity in which the person relinquishes all initiative and struggle. This altered state of consciousness might be regarded as one of nature’s small mercies, a protection against unbearable pain. A rape survivor describes this detached state: “I left my body at that point. I was over next to the bed, watching this happen … . I dissociated from the helplessness. I was standing next to me and there was just this shell on the bed … . There was just a feeling of flatness. I was just there. When I repicture the room, I don’t picture it from the bed. I picture it from the side of the bed. That’s where I was watching from.” A combat veteran of the Second World War reports a similar experience: “Like most of the 4th, I was numb, in a state of virtual disassociation. There is a condition … which we called the two-thousand-year-stare. This was the anesthetized look, the wide, hollow eyes of a man who no longer cares. I wasn’t to that state yet, but the numbness was total. I felt almost as if I hadn’t actually been in a battle.” (Herman 2015, p. 43)

 In this need to work through the past event, the desire to eradicate the experienced event or at least to give it a new meaning plays an important role: “It could have been different, and therefore it was not necessary,” or “I could have reacted differently, so I will also be able to react differently in the future.” The reconfiguration of the past always has an exemplary value for the future.

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After such terrifying events, one is no longer able to keep the temporal horizons of past and present separated from each other. War veterans often describe an anomalous form of consciousness splitting occurring in the most common situations. Day-­ to-­day activities may hide unsuspected challenges. A war veteran, Damon Armeni, behaves in his home city as if he were still in a war scenario. He expects an imminent ambush, fearing that he could be target of an enemy onslaught: “Imagine half your mind telling you that you are in a combat zone, under attack, that you need to take action to defend yourself, and the other half telling you that all you need to do is stop and breathe. You don’t know what is real and what isn’t” (Armeni 2014, p. 11). Here, it is evident that past functional responses dysfunctionally take place in the present situation. It is unfortunately much less evident how to describe and identify the exact nature of this dysfunctional reaction. I think that Husserl’s phenomenology can shed light on this phenomenon. According to Husserl, presentifying acts (Vergegenwärtigungen), such as remembering or phantasizing, entail specific forms of ego-splitting (Ich-Spaltung) (see Chapter 4, Sects. 5 and 10 and Chapter 5, Sect. 1.2). In contrast, perceptual experience does not involve any ego-­splitting. But this is exactly what the war veteran experiences: there is such an overlap between the present perceptual situation and the past scenario that he oscillates between them without knowing where he should locate himself: “You don’t know what is real and what isn’t.” He experiences perceptions in the mode of re-­ presentifying acts. He experiences presentations (Gegenwärtigungen) as if they were presentifications (Vergegenwärtigungen). In Herman’s view, in the post-­traumatic condition one is able to hold two contrary and incompatible beliefs simultaneously (Herman 2015, p. 87). The traumatized person manipulates their memories and this alteration is tolerated and favored by an “altered consciousness.” To clarify the meaning of this alteration of consciousness, Herman refers to the idea of doublethink in Orwell’s 1984: Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The [person] knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity … . Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. (Orwell 1949, pp. 176-7)

Although Herman rightly makes a distinction between doublethink and alterations of perception, she does not sufficiently emphasize the specific difference between them. Ultimately she uses the concept of doublethink as a general term for any form of double-consciousness.37 To clarify this point, let us consider the case of Lea reported by Ruth Jaffe:  I do not intend to deepen Husserl’s distinction between double consciousness and double egos here. It suffices to bear in mind that presentifying acts entail the constitution of two different streams of consciousness. By remembering a past scene, consciousness oscillates between the past recollected situation and the present perceptual horizon. Two different egos understood as poles of action and passivity operate in the two different streams of consciousness. As well-known,

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Lea was 13 years old when war broke out. Every morning when giving food to her dog, her first impulse was to withdraw her hand, holding the bowl in order to eat the food herself, thinking: “Why should the dog eat, and we people go hungry?” This thought which had been rational while starving as a prisoner in a concentration camp and having to feed the watch dog had never left her since. Although she is well off, this impulse is triggered anew by the identical situation and takes on a reality character, if only for seconds, as a form of alternating consciousness. She used to pass her days in a kind of hazy condition of daydreaming in which old traumatic experiences, sadomasochistic fantasies and present ­actuality combined in a kaleidoscopic fashion. For example, she saw Israeli soldiers pass her window, and she supposed, rightly, that they were bound for an Arab frontier. But at the same time she “knew” the frontier to be closed by an electrically-charged barbed wire into which they were to be driven by their Nazi commander. Here a double consciousness is at work, the wakeful state co-existing and interlocking with a dreamy hypnoid state. (Jaffe 1968, p. 311)

In my view, Orwell’s account of doublethink does not allow us to fully understand the consciousness splitting experienced by Lea.38 The reference to the idea of doublethink is certainly suggestive; nonetheless, I find it misleading for two different reasons: (1) it risks equivocation with regards to the relation between perception and linguistic cognition mediated by social interaction; (2) it does not do justice to the specific form of the alteration of consciousness. 1. In 1984, doublethink is presented as a mental process coerced by the pressure to adapt to the dictates and information provided by a terrifying authority. Doublethink is a defense mechanism motivated by unconditional submission to what is said and commanded by the party. The suppression of any critical capacity with respect to the established authority implies the ability to almost automatically forget any knowledge about the past. The subject must accept and assume the party’s sudden changes in policy or in warfare as if they were not

Husserl’s phenomenology turns into a transcendental egological phenomenology when he becomes aware of the identity of the two egos “at work” in presentifying acts (Vergegenwärtigungen) (see Micali 2008). The first systematic account of this turn can be retraced in his Lectures 1910/1911 Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (The Basic Problems of Phenomenology) (1973/2006). 38  Herman holds that prisoners practice doublethink even years after their traumatic experience. Here she refers explicitly to Lea’s case: “The more the period of captivity is disavowed, however, the more this disconnected fragment of the past remains fully alive, with the immediate and present characteristics of traumatic memory. Thus, even years after liberation, the former prisoner continues to practice doublethink and to exist simultaneously in two realities, two points in time. The experience of the present is often hazy and dulled, while the intrusive memories of the past are intense and clear. A study of concentration camp survivors found this ‘double consciousness at work’ in a woman who had been liberated more than twenty years earlier. Watching Israeli soldiers passing outside her window, the woman reported that she knew the soldiers were leaving to fight at the frontier. Simultaneously, however, she ‘knew’ that they were being driven to their deaths by a Nazi commander. While she did not lose touch with the reality of the present, the compelling reality was that of the past.” (Herman 2015, pp. 89–90)

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changes at all.39 In this regard, consciousness must be extremely malleable (and readiness to forget is a necessary condition for consciousness’s malleability). Ultimately, doublethink concerns the alteration of one’s knowledge about the world. This alteration is conditioned and required by the regime of political terror. On the contrary, the alteration of consciousness experienced by the veteran and by Lea does not primarily concern what they think or know. Rather, it affects what they see. More precisely, their disturbance affects the relation between the intentional act of perception and the intentional act of remembering. It is therefore necessary to distinguish an act of intuitive consciousness of the present (perception) from an intuitive consciousness of the past (remembering). Neither is reducible to acts of symbolic and linguistic thought, although linguistic acts are certainly of fundamental importance in shaping both our (individual and collective) memory and in our relating to the perceptual world. As well-known, Husserl distinguishes between (a) the internal horizon and (b) the external horizon of sensible things. (a) Each sensible perception of a single thing consists of a series of adumbrations that refer to a coordinated system of appearances. Through each of these adumbrations I apprehend the same thing from a different perspective. (b) The outlines of the door to my house appears together with the different objects in the hallway, with the windows and with the walls etc. When I cross the threshold of my front door, a small square that I know very well appears in front of me. This square is connected to a complex of streets which in turn refer to other buildings, streets, squares, etc. The door is made up of a coordinated system of internal and external series of adumbrations that are infinitely open and simultaneous. In fact, one of the most intriguing ideas in Husserl’s phenomenology is that in each sensible perception of a single object an actual infinity is involved. It is not possible to reach an ultimate adumbration, which does not refer to other adumbrations.40 Furthermore, it is crucial to underline the aspect of simultaneity: these infinite adumbrations are simultaneous, although we can only perceive them in temporal succession. Husserl goes so far as to state that the successive temporal sequence of adumbrations in perception is an eidetic necessity of perception with universal validity. It is valid even for God. In order to perform an act of perception, God must see a sensible thing through series of adumbrations.

 “If, for example, Eurasia or Eastasia (whichever it may be) is the enemy today, then that country must always have been the enemy. And if the facts say otherwise, then the facts must be altered.” (…) “Thus history is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the stability of the régime as the work of repression and espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love.” (Orwell 1949, p. 210) 40  With regard to Husserl’s notion of infinity in perception see Tengelyi’s contribution Welt und Unendlichkeit (2014). 39

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In Lea’s case there is an alteration of perception. More precisely, this alteration concerns the connection between the present perceptual horizon and the past perceptual horizon. Lea sees Israeli soldiers heading towards the Arab border, but the series of these appearances do not relate to Lea’s current intersubjectively shared world. Rather, they are embedded in and continue the past traumatic situation: in Lea’s eyes, the Nazi commander is right now in charge of closing the borders. The past situation is still present. It is an integral part of the contemporary world: “But at the same time she “knew” the frontier to be closed by an electrically-charged barbed wire into which they were to be driven by their Nazi commander” (Jaffe, 1968, 311). It is not by chance that this “knowing” is in quotation marks. Here “knowing” does not indicate any intellectual knowledge, but rather perceptual knowledge. With regard to hallucinations, Merleau-Ponty emphasizes the disturbance of the power of embodied consciousness to project itself into the environment: The illusion of seeing is, therefore, much less the presentation of an illusory object than the spread and, so to speak, running wild of a visual power which has lost any sensory counterpart. There are hallucinations because through the phenomenal body we are in constant relationship with an environment into which that body is projected, and because, when divorced from its actual environment, the body remains able to summon up, by means of its own settings, the pseudo-presence of that environment.41 (Merleau-Ponty 2002, p. 396)

When a trauma is particularly intense, its evocative force is particularly violent: it then becomes impossible for the subject to escape its rigid repetition. 2. The category of doublethink is also misleading for another reason. Doublethink as an adaptive strategy to a pathogenic social environment is characterized by a “minimum” degree of bad faith. Bad faith is an ambiguous phenomenon as it presupposes to some extent a “healthy” relation to the world. Orwell’s above mentioned definition of double think clearly shows this feature: “The [person] knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated.” The subject here chooses for ambiguous and ambivalent conduct. Still, the person is to some extent aware that there are incompatibilities between social reality and their own demands: therefore one maneuvers, “plays tricks with reality” in order to safely maintain oneself in the grey zone. We have a very different situation in Lea’s case: a distorted perception occurs where two scenes belonging to different temporal horizons overlap in an anomalous way. In this case there is no bad faith because there is no leeway for the consciousness to play tricks with reality: for Lea reality is already altered.

 “L’illusion de voir est donc beaucoup moins la présentation d’un objet illusoire que le déploiement et comme l’affolement d’une puissance visuelle désormais sans contre-partie sensorielle. Il y a des hallucinations parce que nous avons par le corps phénoménal une relation constante avec un milieu où il se projette, et que, détaché du milieu effectif, le corps reste capable d’évoquer par ses propres montages une pseudo-présence de ce milieu” (Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. 392). It is not my intention here to discuss Merleau-Ponty’s theory of hallucinations developed in La phénoménologie de la perception. In my opinion, this theory perhaps says too much and too little at the same time. On the one hand, it is not plausible to say that all hallucinations are so to say ‘poor in world.’ On the other hand, it is necessary to identify the dominant structures of the different forms of hallucinations in various psychopathological conditions.

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4.4  Hypervigilance: On Novelty Herman identifies hyperarousal as one of the three cardinal features of trauma. A traumatized person lives in continuous expectation of an imminent negative event. The patient’s nervous system is exposed to relentless stimulation due to the invasive feeling of impending threats. Since the physiological alteration of the autonomic nervous system is an essential trait of the traumatic disturbance, Abram Kardiner, the author of a fundamental study on veterans Traumatic Neuroses of War, even names traumatic neurosis a “physioneurosis” (Kardiner 1941, pp. 193–198). Kolb’s research confirms the profound physiological alteration in traumatized subjects (Kolb 1987). An alteration of the baseline level of alertness can be found both in dream activity and in the waking state (Herman 2015, p. 36). One important indicator is the increase in heart rate even during the sleep.42 In my view, it is particularly important to describe the specific physiological modifications in terms of a hypervigilant condition. As already seen in a previous section, even neutral noises may become terrifying. Furthermore, empirical experiments show that child victims of violence are prone to misrecognize facial expressions, seeing anger where there is no trace of it.43 The traumatized subject tends to perceive neutral signs as threatening.

 Bruce D.  Perry uses his knowledge of the connection between heart rate and traumatism for convincing a Ranger officer to allow him to see the children raised within the Branch Davidian compound in Waco: “When I arrived one of the Rangers stopped me at the door. He was tall, imposing in his hat, the archetype of Texas law enforcement. He was not impressed by this longhaired man in jeans claiming to be a psychiatrist who had come to help the children. Even after I’d established that I was indeed Dr. Perry, he told me that I didn’t look like a doctor, and further, ‘Those kids don’t need a shrink. All they need is a little love and to get as far away from here as possible.’ Ultimately, this Ranger would turn out to be one of the most positive and healing figures in the children’s lives for the weeks they stayed at the cottage. He was calm, good with children, and intuitively seemed to know how to provide a supportive but not intrusive presence. But right then, he was in my way. I said to him, ‘OK, I’ll tell you what. Do you know how to take a pulse?’ I directed his attention to a young girl who was fast asleep on a nearby couch. I told him that if her pulse was less than 100, I would turn around and go home. The normal heart rate range for a child her age at rest is 70–90 beats per minute (bpm). ‘He bent down gently to pick up the girl’s wrist, and within moments his face filled with anxiety. ‘Get a doctor,’ he said. ‘I am a doctor,’ I replied. ‘No, a real doctor,’ he said, ‘This child’s pulse is 160.’ After reassuring him that psychiatrists are physicians with standard medical training, I began to describe the physiological effects of trauma on children. In this case an elevated heart rate was likely a reflection of the girl’s persistently activated stress-response system. The ranger understood the basics of the fight or flight response; almost all law enforcement officers have some direct experience with this. I noted that the same hormones and neurotransmitters that flood the brain during a stressful event—adrenaline and noradrenaline—are also involved in regulating heart rate, which makes sense since changes in heart rate are needed to react to stress. From my work with other traumatized children, I knew that even months and years after trauma many would still exhibit an overactive stress response. It was a safe bet then that being so close to an overwhelming experience, this little girl’s heart would still be racing. The Ranger let me in” (Perry 2017, p. 66). 43  In this regard the studies carried out at the University of Parma are particularly interesting, see Ardizzi et al. (2013, 2016). 42

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Van der Kolk reports a striking case where this form of perception’s modification becomes apparent: the case of Bill, who participated in the Vietnam war as a doctor. For many years after his war experience, he did not show any disturbance. His problems only arose after the birth of his first child: he started crying without any reason and invasive images of dying Vietnamese children vividly appeared to him. Bill was enrolled in Van der Kolk’s nightmare studies. As part of that study we gave our participants a Rorschach test. (…) The Rorschach provides us with a unique way to observe how people construct a mental image from what is basically a meaningless stimulus: a blot of ink. Because humans are meaning-making creatures, we have a tendency to create some sort of image or story out of those inkblots, just as we do when we lie in a meadow on a beautiful summer day and see images in the clouds floating high above. What people make out of these blots can tell us a lot about how their minds work. On seeing the second card of the Rorschach test, Bill exclaimed in horror, “This is that child that I saw being blown up in Vietnam. In the middle, you see the charred flesh, the wounds, and the blood is spurting out all over.” Panting and with sweat beading on his forehead, he was in a panic similar to the one that had initially brought him to the VA clinic. (Van der Kolk 2015, p. 16)

The past situation imposes itself to such a degree that it overshadows the present as well as the future. More precisely, the past situation orients our relation to novelty, understood as the emergence of the new, in a very specific way. Novelty is a very challenging and intriguing temporal phenomenon because it concerns the constitutively unstable and differential border between the present and the future. The new is the future that is about to become now. Put differently, novelty is a dynamically impending nothing that is about to reach us now, in the present. Novelty is the evenemential dimension of time. Ultimately, the difficulty of defining Husserl’s notion of primary impression is linked to the impossibility of grasping the differential limit between the present and the future. ‘Unmodified’, identical to itself, but without retention, does not the primary impression anticipate all intention and so its own possibility? Husserl seems to say so when he calls the primary impression the ‘absolute beginning’ of all modification that occurs as time, an originary source which ‘is not itself generated’, which arises by ‘genesis spontanea’. “It does not develop (it has no germ): it is a primary creation.” The “real” preceding and surprising the possible—would this not be the very definition of the present, which, indifferent in this description (“generation has no germ!”) to the pro-tention, is no less conscious of it? (Levinas, 1974, pp. 41–42, my translation).44

 “‘Non modifiée’, identique à soi, mais sans rétention, l’originaire impression ne devance-t-elle pas toute pro-tention et ainsi sa propre possibilité? Husserl semble le dire en appelant l’impression originaire ‘commencement absolu’ [Urquell] de toute modification qui se produit comme temps, source originaire qui ‘n’est pas elle-même produite,’ qui naît par ‘genesis spontanea.’ Elle ne se développe pas (elle n’a pas de germe), elle est ‘création originaire’ [Urschöpfung]. Le ‘réel’ précédant et surprenant le possible—ne serait-ce pas la définition même du présent lequel, indifférent dans cette description (‘la génération n’a pas de germe!’) à la pro-tention, n’en serait pas moins conscience?” (Levinas 1974, pp. 41–42). Levinas refers to the famous Appendix I of Husserliana X, where Husserl defines primary impression as originary creation: “Sie erwächst nicht (sie hat keinen Keim), sie ist Urschöpfung” (Hua X, p. 100) see Chapter 4, Sect. 2.

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The essence of the present is novelty as the irruption of a future which is now about to happen to me. The traumatized persons have a very limited capability to resonate with novelty because they are trapped in the traumatic event. Accordingly, it is difficult to establish a clear-cut distinction between two phenomena that are usually very easy to distinguish: the hypervigilance directed to what is happening now and the flashback.45 A minor resemblance of the present situation with the traumatic one puts the patient in a condition of maxim alertness, as if the terrifying situation is happening now and will happen again and again: The Rorschach tests also taught us that traumatized people look at the world in a fundamentally different way from other people. For most of us a man coming down the street is just someone taking a walk. A rape victim, however, may see a person who is about to molest her and go into a panic. A stern schoolteacher may be an intimidating presence to an average kid, but for a child whose stepfather beats him up, she may represent a torturer and precipitate a rage attack or a terrified cowering in the corner. (Van der Kolk 2015, p. 17)

The actuality of trauma signifies a different temporality where past and future become almost indistinguishable.

5  The Future of Trauma A traumatic event cannot be put into words. Therefore, it is not uncommon for the traumatized subject to resort to a systematic use of deictic expressions. At this point, I would like to report a personal experience. At the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of Heidelberg, I encountered several patients who suffer from severe depression. The purpose of these meetings was to understand the coherent alteration of inner time-consciousness in this altered condition. Once I met a patient A.E., whose lucidity in describing her condition was simply remarkable. Her condition clearly improved during the preceding 4 weeks and hence she was about to leave the hospital. Yet, she was still terrified that another severe episode of depression could again happen to her. It is worth noticing that she never pronounced the word “depression” during the several conversations between us. Rather, she preferred to use deictic terms (“it”, sometimes “she”). Traumatic events tend towards the ineffability of singularity. The expression “9/11” also responds to this logic. It has been largely overlooked in the specialist literature that Derrida, in his work on the attack against the Twin Towers, offers a significant contribution to the

 Van der Kolk has the vivid impression that with Bill he witnessed for the first time a flashback experienced by a veteran: “Although I had heard veterans describing their flashbacks, this was the first time I actually witnessed one. In that very moment in my office, Bill was obviously seeing the same images, smelling the same smells, and feeling the same physical sensations he had felt during the original event. Ten years after helplessly holding a dying baby in his arms, Bill was reliving the trauma in response to an inkblot.” (Van der Kolk 2015, p. 16)

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understanding of trauma both with regard to its singularity and to its temporality.46 The use of the expression “9/11” deserves special attention: the almost obsessive use of this formula (“9/11”) both in public and in private in the wake of the attack can be seen as an attempt to familiarize what remains incomprehensible.47 The mechanical, repetitive use of this formula is able to bring us closer to what is not “appropriable”, as if one endeavors through the power of language to restore the violated order. This compulsive repetition betrays the urge to undo the event. On the one hand, the expression 9/11 is unambiguously empty: it does not convey anything about the specific occurrence. Its emptiness and vagueness are all but accidental. One intends to relate to the traumatic event without facing it directly, as if to say: it is useless to spell out its meaning, because what has happened is overwhelmingly clear. “9/11” then becomes the proper name of that specific trauma. On the other hand, this extraordinary event is named with reference to our (ordinary) calendar. The name itself—9/11—alludes to the continuity of time. “9/11” is the proper name of one unique destabilizing event and is at the same time the calendar’s neutral date that occurs and recurs in a stable, orderly way each year.48 9/11 was immediately perceived as a “major event”. Inspired by Heidegger, Derrida defines the “event” as something impossible to understand. An event sweeps the ground from under our feet, showing itself precisely in the disorientation it provokes. The repeated use of a deictic expression is the first (counter)measure in response to this sense of disorientation: The brevity of the appellation (September 11, 9/11) stems not only from an economic or rhetorical necessity. The telegram of this metonymy–a name, a number—points out the unqualifiable by recognizing that we do not recognize or even cognize, that we do not yet know how to qualify, that we do not know what we are talking about. This is the first, indisputable effect of what occurred (whether it was calculated, well calculated, or not), precisely on September 11, not far from here: we repeat this, we must repeat it, and it is all the more necessary to repeat it insofar as we do not really know what is being named in this way, as if to exorcise two times at one go: on the one hand, to conjure away, as if by magic, the “thing” itself, the fear or the terror it inspires (for repetition always protects by neutralizing, deadening, distancing a traumatism, and this is true for the repetition of the televised images we will speak of later), and, on the other hand, to deny, as close as

 Derrida wrote the text Autoimmunity just 5 weeks after the attack in the form of a dialogue with Federica Buongiorno. 47  “‘Something’ took place, we have the feeling of not having seen it coming, and certain consequences undeniably follow upon the ‘thing.’ But this very thing, the place and meaning of this ‘event,’ remains ineffable, like an intuition without concept, like a unicity with no generality on the horizon or with no horizon at all, out of range for a language that admits its powerlessness and so is reduced to pronouncing mechanically a date, repeating it endlessly, as a kind of ritual incantation, a conjuring poem, a journalistic litany or rhetorical refrain that admits to not knowing what it’s talking about. We do not in fact know what we are saying or naming in this way: September 11, le 11 septembre, September 11.” (Derrida 2003, p. 86) 48  This destabilization does not only concern the credit of American power on the dominant structures of political hegemony, international law, and economic processes, but also and above all the dominant “logos”, the paradigms of public discourse, the “values” that shape the common sense. The event operates a break, opening scenarios as unknown as they are disturbing (Derrida 2003). 46

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What is truly significant in Derrida’s analysis of 9/11 is the way he elaborates the concept of trauma first developed in the psychoanalytic field. Although Derrida does not expressly mention his name, it is quite evident that Freud is his main polemical target. Derrida’s objection against Freud concerns the temporal structure of traumatism. It could be formulated and summarized as follows: Freud’s conception of trauma is improperly oriented towards the dimension of the past. On the contrary, it is necessary to point out the essential role of the future in order to fully understand the terror arising from the traumatic event. Trauma cannot be primarily seen as a (unconscious) repetition of an invasive past. The ordeal of the event has as its tragic correlate not what is presently happening or what has happened in the past but the precursory signs of what threatens to happen. It is the future that determines the unappropriability of the event, not the present or the past. Or at least, if it is the present or the past, it is only insofar as it bears on its body the terrible sign of what might or perhaps will take place, which will be worse than anything that has ever taken place. Let me clarify. We are talking about a trauma, and thus an event, whose temporality proceeds neither from the now that is present nor from the present that is past but from an im-­ presentable to come (à venir). A weapon wounds and leaves forever open an unconscious scar; but this weapon is terrifying because it comes from the to-come, from the future, a future so radically to come that it resists even the grammar of the future anterior. Imagine that the Americans and, through them, the entire world, had been told: what has just happened, the spectacular destruction of two towers, the theatrical but invisible deaths of thousands of people in just a few second, is an awful thing, a terrible crime, a pain without measure, but it’s all over, it won’t happen again, there will never again be anything as awful as or more awful than that. I assume that mourning would have been possible in a relatively short period of time. (Derrida 2003, pp. 96-7)

Terror is not primarily provoked by and linked to an event from the past but is rather grounded on our openness to the future, i.e. to the worst yet to come: the “impresentability” of the future must be thought of in relation to the creative proliferation of negative possibilities that are experienced as real, impending threats in the present. It is essential to underscore the unconscious character of this relation to the imminent future. What is at work in trauma is an unconscious productive imagination, thanks to which the boundaries between reality and possibilities get very blurred. Although Derrida does not use the expression “unconscious productive imagination”, the following passage unequivocally implicates this idea: There is traumatism with no possible work of mourning when the evil comes from the possibility to come of the worst, from the repetition to come-though worse. Traumatism is produced by the future, by the to come, by the threat of the worst to come, rather than by an aggression that is “over and done with.” What happened, even though this has not been said with the requisite clarity – and for good reason – is that, for the future and for always, the threat that was indicated through these signs might be worse than any other, worse even, and we shall explain this, than the threat that organized the so-called “Cold War.” The threat of a chemical attack, no doubt, or bacteriological attack (recall that in the weeks immediately following September 11 it was thought that this was actually taking place), but espe-

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cially the threat of a nuclear attack. Though rather little has been said about this, those responsible in the administration and in Congress quickly took the necessary measures to ensure that a constitutional state might survive a nuclear attack against Washington, the head of state, and the Congress (the Pentagon, White House, and the Capitol building). (Derrida 2003, p. 97)

Derrida’s conception of traumatism entails the notion of an ​​ unconscious productive imagination that projects itself into the future. Essentially, the very concept of the unconscious “proceeds” from the future. Productive imagination relates itself to the worst that is yet to come in a specific way: the worst to come could and therefore will happen to us.49 The suspension of the strict distinction between imagination, anticipation of the future and the arbitrary projection of irrational possibilities is inherent in traumatism. One presupposition underlying Derrida’s analysis appears questionable to me: is it legitimate to affirm that traumatism in general is characterized by the primacy of a specific temporal dimension (the future) over other dimensions? In my view, it is problematic to assert that traumatism entails a rigid, hierarchal structuring of the relation between present, past, and future. To put it differently, it is dubious to hold that the traumatic event primarily affects the (unconscious) relation to the future, that one is basically traumatized “by the future, by the to come, by the threat of the worst to come” (Derrida 2003, p. 97). It is actually not possible to identify one fixed and stable temporal structure which is valid for all forms of traumatism. Therefore it is not legitimate to affirm the primacy of the future. Certainly, every case of severe trauma implies an irreversible experience that not only entails a radical transformation of our relation to the others, to the world, and to ourselves, but also provokes an alteration of inner time-consciousness. Certainly, in every kind of trauma ghosts from both the past and the future visit consciousness, and they contribute to nurturing a sense of the unreality of present experience, which is rendered numb, faded and inhospitable. Still, each case presents us with an unpredictable singularity where the predominance of either the future or the past varies to a large extent. In some cases—such as that of Irène reported by Janet—the dimension of the future does not appear to be the most prominent. As already described, Irène oscillates between a state of amnesia and a hallucinatory condition in which she re-lives the last days of her mother’s life. Admittedly, the dimension of the future is always “involved” in such experiences, but in this case we are dealing with the clear predominance of the past dimension. I assume that even if our words could reach Irène during her hallucinatory condition and we could manage to convince her that this “will not happen again,” these words would probably have a very limited impact on her. Her mourning “will not be possible in a relatively short period of time” (Derrida 2003, p. 97). In Irène’s case, the worst to come has already taken place. Also in the case of Auschwitz survivors, such as Zygfryd Rębylas or Primo Levi, it does not

 The difficulty of making the distinction between “could” and “will” is an integral part of the trauma. The analysis of the doxic modality of anxiety in Chapter 5, Sect. 1.2 sheds light on this aspect.

49

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seem plausible to attribute a primacy to the future. It is difficult to understand how their traumatism could be defined primarily in light of future threats, of the trembling expectation: “it will happen again.” On the contrary, the problem of working through the past seems to be essential: “How is it possible that all this could have happened?” “And why did it happened to me?”– these are the questions haunting the survivors. Auschwitz then raises further questions about the very legitimacy of the mourning process. Jean Amery considers it immoral to consent to the course of natural time which favors a “healing” forgetting: opposing the dominant Nietzschean interpretation of resentment, Amery argues that it is a moral duty to nurture resentment towards those who perpetrated these crimes – only such resentment remains faithful to the ethical demand of not accepting what should never have happened (Amery 1966/1980). To summarize: a different temporality arises in trauma. One could even say that in a specific respect past and future become almost indistinguishable in the actuality of trauma.50 The past, with its irreversible character, as well as the future, with its unconscious ghostly presences, constitute two moments of traumatism that operate in concert. Yet their relationship, including the predominance of one temporal moment over the other, is unpredictably negotiated (and renegotiated again and again) in individual experiences.

6  Anxiety as Protection from Trauma: Medusa and Perseus In the second paragraph of Jenseits des Lustprinzips (“Beyond the Pleasure Principle”), Freud introduces a distinction between three terms involved in his investigation of trauma: Furcht (fear) Angst (anxiety) and Schreck (fright). In the case of the ordinary traumatic neuroses two prominently characteristics emerge: first, that the chief weight in their causation seems to rest upon the factor of surprise, of fright; and secondly, that a wound or injury inflicted simultaneously works as a rule against the development of a neurosis. ‘Fright’, ‘fear and ‘anxiety’ are improperly used as synonymous expressions; they are in fact capable of clear distinction in their relation to danger. ‘Anxiety’ describes a particular state of expecting the danger or preparing for it, even though it may be an unknown one. ‘Fear’ requires a definite object of which to be afraid. ‘Fright’, however, is the name we give to the state a person gets into when he has run into danger without being prepared for it; it emphasizes the factor of surprise. I do not believe anxiety itself can produce a traumatic neurosis. There is something about anxiety that protects its subject against fright and so against fright-neuroses.51 (Freud 1955a, pp. 12–13)

 If I have stressed the relevance of the adverb of time “still”, I have also to underline that one has to make violence to the language in order to do justice to the temporality of trauma: the trauma is still occurring now. 51  “An der gemeinen traumatischen Neurose heben sich zwei Züge hervor, an welche die Überlegung anknüpfen konnte, erstens, daß das Hauptgewicht der Verursachung auf das Moment der Überraschung, auf den Schreck, zu fallen schien, und zweitens, daß eine gleichzeitig erlittene Verletzung oder Wunde zumeist der Entstehung der Neurose entgegenwirkte. Schreck, Furcht, 50

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Undoubtedly, Schreck is a difficult word to translate. The French translations of Freud’s passage confirm this difficulty. Jankélévitch translates Schreck into French with frayeur. Laplanche’s opted for effroi instead. The Italian translation is even more problematic: the term spavento is far too weak. Schreck indicates an experience of sudden terror or fright. In Freud’s second theory of anxiety—to which we will return at length in the following chapters—anxiety performs a protective function to prevent trauma: through anxiety we attempt to avoid the onset of panic linked with past traumas. In Hemmung, Symptom und Angst (Inhibition, Symptom, and Anxiety, Freud 1991/1959), Freud compares the structure of anxiety to the function of a vaccine. The ego undergoes a weak repetition of past negative events in order to be better prepared for impending threats. We anticipate a dangerous situation through imagination, as if by doing so we could be vaccinated against it: In this case the ego subjects itself to anxiety as a sort of inoculation (Impfung), submitting to a slight attack of the illness in order to escape its full strength. It vividly imagines the danger situation, as it were, with the unmistakable purpose of restricting that distressing experience to a mere indication, a signal.52 (Freud 1959, p. 162, trans. modified)

Trauma generates anxiety. The ego “uses” a part of this anxiety as a signal to defend itself from terror.53 If blindness is an integral part of the traumatic event as we have seen in relation to Zygfryd Rębylas’s experience (Sect. 5), it is not a coincidence that Medusa has become a paradigmatic image of terror. One cannot directly look at Medusa for the same reason that it is impossible to be fully aware in the very moment of trauma. The traumatic experience destabilizes intentional consciousness to such an extent that the protentional and retentional phases of the living present cannot attach themselves to the primary impression as they usually do in perception. Medusa can be “seen” as a paradigm of traumatic blindness. She embodies terror’s dizziness. Medusa’s gaze kills, that is to say, one cannot be intentionally aware during the moment of terror. Intentionality simply fails. No (synchronic) correlation between noesis and noema is possible here. It suffices to bear in mind Zygfryd Rębylas’s testimony: “For a moment, I didn’t know what was happening around me, whether their eyes were still upon me, if they were even still standing there, right in front of me. I can’t say what went on inside my brain. But then, not sure when, the world had Angst werden mit Unrecht wie synonyme Ausdrücke gebraucht; sie lassen sich in ihrer Beziehung zur Gefahr gut auseinanderhalten. Angst bezeichnet einen gewissen Zustand wie Erwartung der Gefahr und Vorbereitung auf dieselbe, mag sie auch eine unbekannte sein; Furcht verlangt ein bestimmtes Objekt, vor dem man sich fürchtet; Schreck aber benennt den Zustand, in den man gerät, wenn man in Gefahr kommt, ohne auf sie vorbereitet zu sein, betont das Moment der Überraschung. Ich glaube nicht, daß die Angst eine traumatische Neurose erzeugen kann; an der Angst ist etwas, was gegen den Schreck und also auch gegen die Schreckneurose schützt.” (Freud 1940, pp. 9–10) 52  “In diesem Fall unterzog sich das Ich der Angst gleichsam wie einer Impfung, um durch einen abgeschwächten Krankheitsausbruch einem ungeschwächten Anfall zu entgehen. Es stellt sich gleichsam die Gefahrensituation lebhaft vor, bei unverkennbarer Tendenz, dies peinliche Erleben auf eine Andeutung, ein Signal, zu beschränken.” (Freud 1991, p. 195) 53  Both the limits and the complexity of ego’s use of anxiety will be later discussed at length.

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me back again, everything around me swayed, the whole Lager, the mountain peaks all around, revolved around the camp like in a carousel.” (Ryn and Klondinzki 1987, p. 310) Let us consider Carracci’s work Perseo decapita Medusa (Perseus beheads Medusa).54

Perseus beheads Medusa, Annibale Carracci, Palazzo Farnese. Photo Anderson 1934.

This work admirably exemplifies the need to address traumas indirectly. Those who suffered from a trauma must walk a treacherous path in dealing with an “actively present negativity” from their past—a path consisting of avoidance strategies, missed verbalizations, and perhaps hesitant forms of exposure. To be successful, this approach must both proceed indirectly and be supported by persons of trust. One should not overlook the fact that in Carracci’s painting, Perseus is assisted by the Others, in this case Mercury and Minerva who has given and carries the shield serving as a mirror. The expression “person of trust” must be taken literally. Serious traumas undermine our basic trust in the world (Erikson 1950). After being tortured, Jean Amery reports not only his loss of faith in his fellow man, but also that he no longer even believed in the obvious evidence of the elementary concordance of

 Martin has written a remarkable essay On Carracci’s work Perseo decapita, Immagini della virtù: the paintings of Camerino Farnese. Martin’s essay paved a way for a new understanding of the Camerino in Palazzo Farnese (Martin 1956). Two other essays deserve to be mentioned here: Annibale Carracci a Roma written by Ginzburg, Carignani (2000) and Mozzetti’s contribution Il Camerino Farnese di Annibale Carracci (2002). 54

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perceptual phenomena,55 logical arguments or physical laws. The coordinates of the world have undergone a radical change: “I don’t know if the person who is beaten by the police loses human dignity. Yet I am certain that with the very first blow that descends on him he loses something we will perhaps temporarily call trust in the world”56 (Amery 1980, p. 28). Trust in the “objective” world is essentially linked to other’s respect for me as embodied existence: Trust in the world includes all sorts of things: the irrational and logically unjustifiable belief in absolute causality perhaps, or the likewise blind belief in the validity of the inductive inference. But more important as an element of trust in the world, and in our context what is solely relevant, is the certainty that by reason of written or unwritten social contracts the other person will spare me - more precisely stated, that he will respect my physical, and with it also my metaphysical, being. The boundaries of my body are also the boundaries of myself. My skin surface shields me against the external world. If I am to have trust, I must feel on it only what I want to feel. At the first blow, however, this trust in the world breaks down. The other person, opposite whom I exist physically in the world and with whom I can exist only as long as he does not touch my skin surface as border, forces his own corporeality on me with the first blow. He is on me and thereby destroys me.57 (Amery 1980, p. 28)

Only through the brave act of addressing Medusa’s mirror image on the shield, is it possible for Perseus to interrupt her terrifying impact on him: one could almost say that here terror is blinded by its own reflection.58 The reflection on the shield does not only represent the need to deal with trauma obliquely, but suggests the idea that the traumatized self (supported by the other) should not avoid the source of its terror: the self has to see the mirrored images of its trauma in order to reconfigure the story of its past events as well as to mourns its losses. All these efforts are oriented  The creation of a secure environment is the base of the standard staged-approach to trauma therapy developed by Judith Herman (2015) (see also Cloitre et al., 2011; Frewen and Lanius, 2015). 56  “Ich weiß also nicht, ob die Menschenwürde verliert, wer von Polizeileuten geprügelt wird. Doch bin ich sicher, daß er schon mit dem ersten Schlag, der auf ihn niedergeht, etwas einbüßt, was wir vielleicht vorläufig das Weltvertrauen nennen wollen.” (Amery 1966, p. 50) 57  “Weltvertrauen. Dazu gehört vielerlei: der irrationale und logisch nicht zu rechtfertigende Glaube an unverbrüchliche Kausalität etwa oder die gleichfalls blinde Überzeugung von der Gültigkeit des Induktionsschlusses. Wichtiger aber - und in unserem Zusammenhang allein relevant - ist als Element des Weltvertrauens die Gewißheit, daß der andere auf Grund von geschriebenen oder ungeschriebenen Sozialkontrakten mich schont, genauer gesagt, daß er meinen physischen und damit auch metaphysischen Bestand respektiert. Die Grenzen meines Körpers sind die Grenzen meines Ichs. Die Hautoberfläche schließt mich ab gegen die fremde Welt: auf ihr darf ich, wenn ich Vertrauen haben soll, nur zu spüren bekommen, was ich spüren will. Mit dem ersten Schlag aber bricht dieses Weltvertrauen zusammen. Der andere, gegen den ich physisch in der Welt bin und mit dem ich nur solange sein kann, wie er meine Hautoberfläche als Grenze nicht tangiert, zwingt mir mit dem Schlag seine eigene Körperlichkeit auf. Er ist an mir und vernichtet mich damit.” (Amery 1966, pp. 50–51) 58  Carroci’s painting exemplifies the dramaturgical complexity of exchange of gazes: Perseus addresses Medusa’s mirror image on the shield, while she simultaneously encounters her own mirrored gaze—this mirroring act leads to her death. 55

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towards self-reconciliation and eventually to what seems simply to be inconceivable in the present condition: during the (long) course of a therapy the objective (and hope) is to become capable of developing an eccentric position towards its own trauma.

References Abdulali, Sohaila. 1983. I Fought for My Life … and Won. Manushi 16: 18–19. Agamben, Giorgio 1998. Quel che resta di Auschwitz. L’archivio e il testimone (Homo sacer, III). Torino: Bollati Boringhieri. English edition: Agamben, Giorgio. 1999. Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Homo Sacer III (trans: Heller-Roazen, Daniel). New York: Zone Books. ———. 2008. Signatura rerum. Sul Metodo. Bollati Boringhier: Torino. English edition: Agamben, Giorgio. 2009. The Signature of All Things: On Method (trans: D’Isanto, Luca and Attell, Kevin). New York: Zone Books. Amery, Jean. 1966. Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne: Bewältigungsversuche eines Überwältigten. Munich: Szczesny. English edition: Amery, Jean. 1980. At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor of Auschwitz and Its Realities (trans: Rosenfeld, Sidney and Rosenfeld, Stella P.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Armeni, Damon T. 2014. A Soldier Fights Off the Cold. New York Times, May 11, 2014. Ardizzi, M., F. Martini, M.A. Umiltà, M. Sestito, R. Ravera, and V. Gallese. 2013. When Early Experiences Build a Wall to Others’ Emotions: An Electrophysiological and Autonomic Study. PLoS ONE 8 (4): e61004. Ardizzi, M., M.A.  Umiltà, V.  Evangelista, A.  Di Liscia, R.  Ravera, and V.  Gallese. 2016. Less Empathic and More Reactive: The Different Impact of Childhood Maltreatment on Facial Mimicry and Vagal Regulation. PLoS ONE 11 (9): e0163853. Blanchot, Maurice. 1959. Le Livre à venir. Paris: Gallimard. English edition: 2002. The Book to Come (trans. Charlotte Mandell). Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Charcot, J.-M., C. Bouchard, and Édouard Brissaud. 1894. Traité de Médicine. Paris: G. Masson. Cloitre, M., C.A. Courtois, A. Charuvastra, R. Carpezza, B.C. Stolbach, and B.L. Green. 2011. Treatment of Complex PTSD: Results of the ISTSS Clinician Survey on Best Practices. Journal of Traumatic Stress 24: 615–627. Derrida, Jacques. 2003. Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides. In Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, ed. Giovanna Borradori, 85–136. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Erikson, Erik. 1950. Childhood and Society. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Freud, Sigmund. 1940a. Gesammelte Werke. Chronologisch Geordnet. Band 13. Jenseits des Lustprinzips, Massen Psychologie und Ich-Analyse, Das Ich und das Es. London: Imago. ———. 1940b. Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse [1917], Gesammelte Werke Bd. XI. Berlin: Fischer, 1998. ———. 1952. Gesammelte Werke. Chronologisch Geordnet. Band 1. Werke aus den Jahren 1892–1899. London: Imago. ———. 1955a. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. II. London: The Hogarh Press and The Institute of Psycho-Analysis. 1893–1895. Studies on Hysteria by Joseph Breuer and Sigmund Freud. Trans. Strachey, James. Collaboration Anna Freud. ———. 1955b. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XVIII.  London: The Hogarh Press and The Institute of Psycho-Analysis. 1920-1922. Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other Works. Trans. Strachey, James. Collaboration Anna Freud.

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———. 1959. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XX. 1925-1926. An Autobiographical Study, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. The Question of Lay Analysis and Other Works. Trans. Strachey, James. Collaboration Anna Freud. London: The Hogarh Press and The Institute of Psycho-Analysis. ——— 1962. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. In 1893–1899. Early Psycho-Analytic Publications. Trans. Strachey, James, Vol. III. London: The Hogarh Press and The Institute of Psycho-Analysis. Collaboration Anna Freud ———. 1991. Gesammelte Werke. Chronologisch Geordnet. Band 14. Werke aus den Jahren 1925–1931. London: Imago. Frewen, Paul, and Ruth Lanius. 2015. Healing the Traumatized Self: Consciousness, Neuroscience, Treatment. New York: W.W. Norton. Friedländer, Saul. 1997. Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939. New York: HarperCollins. ———. 2007, Den Holocaust beschreiben. Auf dem Weg zu einer integrierten Geschichte Göttingen: Wallstein. Ginzburg, Carignani Silvia. 2000. Annibale Carracci a Roma: gli affreschi di Palazzo Farnese. Roma: Donzelli. Habermas, Jürgen. 1977. Martin Heidegger: On the Publication of Lectures from the Year 1935. Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 6/2: 155–180. Heidegger, M. 1967. Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Klostermann. English edition: Heidegger, M. 1962. Being and Time (trans: John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson). London: SCM Press Heidegger, M. 1986. Être et Temps. Trans. Vezin, François. Paris: Galimard. ———. 1964. L’être et le temps. Trans. Boehm, Rudolf and De Waelhens, Alphonse. Paris: Gallimard. ———. 1976. Essere e Tempo. Trans. Chiodi, Pietro. Milano: Longanesi. ———. 1986. Être et Temps. Trans. Vezin, François. Paris: Galimard. ———. 1997. Ser y Tiempo. Trans. Por Jorge Eduardo Rivera. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria. Herman, Judith. 2015. Trauma and Recovery. The Aftermath of Violence: From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books. Husserl, Edmund. 1950. Husserliana (abbreviation: Hua): Gesammelte Werke. Den Haag/ Dordrecht. ———. 1966. Hua X. Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (1893–1917). Edited by R. Boehm. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. English edition: Husserl, Edmund. 1991. On the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time (1893–1917) (trans. Brough, T.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. ——— 1973. Hua XIII.  Aus den Vorlesungen “Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie”, Wintersemester 1910/11. In Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. 1. Teil: 1905–1920. Ed. Iso Kern. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. English edition: Husserl Edmund. 2006. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. From the Lectures, Wintersemester 1910–1911 (trans: Farin, I. and Hart, J.). Dordrecht: Springer. Jaffe, Ruth. 1968. Dissociative Phenomena in Former Concentration Camp Inmates. The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 49: 310–312. James, Henry. 1981. In The Notebooks of Henry James, ed. F.O.  Matthiessen and Kenneth B. Murdock. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1992. The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories. In Introduction and notes, ed. T.J. Lustig. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2014. The Aspern Papers. London: Penguin. Janet, Pierre. 1911. L’État mental des hystériques (2nd enlarged ed). Paris: Felix Alcan. Jonas, Hans. 1958. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God & the Beginnings of Christianity. Boston: Beacon Press. Kardiner, Abram. 1941. The Traumatic Neuroses of War. New York: P. B. Hoeber.

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Kolb, Lawrence C. 1987. A Neuropsychological Hypothesis Explaining Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry 144: 989–995. Kraus, Alfred. 1991. Phänomenologische und symptomatologisch-kriteriologische Diagnostik. Fundamenta Psychiatrica 5: 102–109. Lacan, Jacques. 2003. Le Séminaire. Livre IX. L’identfication. Paris: M. Roussan. ———. 2004. Le Séminaire. Livre X. L’angoisse. 1962–1963. Ed. Jacques-­Alain Miller. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. English edition: Lacan, Jacques 2014. The Seminar. Book X. Anxiety, 1962–1963 (trans. Price, A. R.). New York: Polity Press. Laplanche, Jean. 1980. Problématiques I: L'angoisse. Paris: PUF. Levi, Primo. 2005. Se questo è un uomo. Torino: Einaudi. English edition: Levi, Primo. 1959. If this is a man (trans. Woolf, Stuart). New York: The Orion Press. Levinas, Emmanuel. 1974. Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence. La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff. Martin, S.R. 1956. Immagini della virtù: The paintings of Camerino Farnese. The Art Bulletin 38: 79–82. McKinnon, M.C., D.J. Palombo, A. Nazarov, N. Kumar, W. Khuu, and B. Levine. 2015. Threat of death and autobiographical memory: A study of passengers from Flight AT236. Clinical Psychological Science: A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science 3: 487–502. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1945. Phénomenologie de la perception. Paris: Gallimard. English edition: Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 2002. Phenomenology of perception (trans. Smith, C.). London: Routledge Classics. Mesnard, Philppe, and Claudine Kahan. 2001. Giorgio Agamben à l’épreuve d’Auschwitz. Paris: Editions Kimé. Micali, Stefano. 2008. Überschüsse der Erfahrung. Grenzdimensionen des Ich nach Husserl. Dordrecht: Springer. Micali, Stefano, and Th. Fuchs, eds. 2014. Wolfgang Blankenburg—Psychiatrie und Phänomenologie. Freiburg: Alber. Mozzetti, Francesco. 2002. Il Camerino Farnese di Annibale Carracci. Mélanges de l’école française de Rome.: 809–836. Orwell, George. 1949. 1984. . Signet Classic EditionNew York: New American Library. Perry, Bruce D. 2017. The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog and other stories from a child psychiatrist’s notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love and Healing. New York: Basic Books. Ryn, Z. and. Klodziński S. 1987. Tod und Sterben im Konzentrationslager. In Die Auschwitz-­ Hefte: Texte der polnischen Zeitschrift "Przeglad Lekarski" über historische, psychische u. medizinische Aspekte des Lebens und Sterbens in Auschwitz, 1, Weinheim: Beltz. 281-328. Sofsky, Wolfgang. 1993. Die Ordnung des Terrors: Das Konzentrationslager. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer. English edition: Sofsky, Wolfgang. 2013. The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp. (trans. Templer, William). Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. Tatossian, Arthur. 1979. Phénoménologie des psychoses. Paris: Masson. Taubes, Susan. 1954. The Gnostic Foundations of Heidegger’s Nihilism. The Journal of Religion 34: 155–172. Tellenbach, Hubertus. 1956. Räumlichkeit der Melancholischen. Nervenarzt 27: 12–18. Tengelyi, Laszlo. 2014. Welt und Unendlichkeit: Zum Problem phänomenologischer Metaphysik. Freiburg: Karl Alber. Van der Kolk, Kessel. 2015. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. London: Penguin Book. Venezia, Shlomo. 2007. Sonderkommando Auschwitz. Milano: Rizzoli. English edition: Venezia, Shlomo. 2009. Inside the gas chambers: Eight months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz, (trans. Brown, Andrew). London: Penguin Book. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953. Philosophical Investigations (Philosophische Untersuchungen, Eng. & Ger.) Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe.

Chapter 3

Anxiety Between Negative Connotation and Positive Teleology: Sartre, Kierkegaard and Heidegger

In this chapter, the analyses of those thinkers who in all likelihood have been the most influential in philosophical research on anxiety will be examined and critically discussed: Jean-Paul Sartre, Søren Kierkegaard, and Martin Heidegger. My purpose is not to offer an exhaustive account of their sophisticated analyses of anxiety; this task clearly exceeds the present work. Rather, my intention is to show how these different approaches to anxiety share a common ground which at first glance remains unnoticed. One can summarize this concealed but decisive aspect as follows: anxiety is negatively connoted but it hides a positive teleology. My efforts are directed towards a rigorous definition of the meaning as well as the function of this positive teleology, from a systematic point of view, in the different theoretical frameworks. In this regard, Heidegger’s account is particularly complex and tortuous. Furthermore, his research on anxiety has been the most dominant in the phenomenological tradition. Therefore, I will devote more to attention to it.

1  Freedom’s Vertigo Compared to other species, in human beings there occurs an impressive de-­ synchronization between what is intended and what appears on the perceptual horizon. Humans may detach themselves from the surrounding world by dwelling in imagined worlds; they can be moved by their memories or become immersed in unexpected rêveries. It is certainly possible that the acts of imagination, remembering, and reverie have their motivations in the environment, but their development— strictly speaking—is not caused or determined by what we encounter in perception. Surely an object appearing in perception may trigger a specific memory. However, the elaboration of this recollection does not follow any established path. Appearances of imagination or those of recollection proceed by unpredictable associations that are not directly grounded in perception. In other words, these associations are free. They are free in an originary way: they testify human freedom. Freedom implies a © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Micali, Phenomenology of Anxiety, Phaenomenologica 235, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89018-6_3

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caesura between oneself and the world. The possibility of projecting oneself into the world necessarily presupposes such a caesura.1 According to Sartre, choosing one’s own conduct primarily shows itself as negation: I am not who I was before. In the actuality of this negativity, freedom shines through as anxiety: “It is in anxiety (angoisse) that man gets the consciousness of his freedom, or if you prefer, anxiety is the mode of being of freedom as consciousness of being; it is in anxiety that freedom is, in its being, in question for itself”2 (Sartre 1984, p. 29). Sartre analyzes one concrete experience which allows him to define the difference between fear (peur) and anxiety (angoisse). Walking on a narrow mountain path, the possibility of falling over the precipice comes spontaneously to mind. This possibility may be further elaborated according to different scenarios: what if I get distracted for a moment …, what if I stumble …, what if the path’s edge fails to hold my weight and collapses … The non-verbalized conclusion from all these different options is always the same: “then it’s over.” In all these different scenarios, I treat myself as a thing. I am passive towards these possibilities which determine me from the outside: I perceive myself as an object in the world—that is to say, I am subjected to certain circumstances and conditions that are causally connected. In this view, fear is the perception of myself as a transcendent object among other transcendent objects: I do not find the principle of action in myself. In fear, I am in a condition of passivity with respect to the world. In anxiety, on the other hand, the self-relation becomes prominent. More precisely, my (absolute) freedom is at stake: “Vertigo is anxiety to the extent that I am afraid not of falling over the precipice, but of throwing myself over” (Sartre 1984, p. 29).3 In fear, I relate to “objective” dangers: I can easily fall when walking on a narrow mountain path. These dangers demand increased attention: I have to be focused on making the right movements, I have to put my foot in the right place, etc. In anxiety, I feel that none of these actions are objectively “guaranteed.” If I decide to move away from a ravine’s edge, I make 1  Sartre’s investigation on anxiety is carried out in the context of his research on the emergence of nothingness in the realm of being. After highlighting different aporias according to which being in itself cannot generate or produce the nothing, Sartre underscores that the nothing appears through human freedom—human being is the nothing of one’s own freedom. Through human being, the nothing comes to being. The emergence of nothingness is manifested in an emblematic way in questioning as a human conduct—the act of questioning means keeping undecided whether something is or is not: it presupposes the positivity of nothing, the fact that something is not. There is the possibility of keeping something between being and nothing, undecided, only if one is able to detach oneself from being: one is capable of detaching oneself from the world because one is capable of detaching oneself from oneself. Human being is always divided in itself as evidenced by Sartre’s analysis of imaginative consciousness in light of the category of negation. At the very moment that I pose a mental image (Nicola is at home)—I deny the world in its entirety; I deny the mental image as here now present, and I deny my own act as present in the world (Sartre 1940/2007). 2  “C’est dans l’angoisse que l’homme prend conscience de sa liberté ou, si l’on préfère, l’angoisse est le mode d’être de la liberté comme conscience d’être, c’est dans l’angoisse que la liberté est dans son être en question pour elle-même.” (Sartre 1943, p. 64) 3  “Le vertige est angoisse dans la mesure où je redoute non de tomber dans le précipice mais de m’y jeter.” (Sartre 1943, p. 64)

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a choice that is not grounded on any fore-established truth, on any ethical principle, on any biological necessity (Mouillie 2000, pp. 73–90). This choice finds no foundation in a transcendent reality—it rests only on my sovereign freedom. Anxiety finds its raison d’être in the fact that there is no necessary reason for choosing a specific possibility. Anxiety is anxiety before my unconditional freedom. I can always detach myself from any commitment I have previously made. At the very moment when one is horrified of falling over the precipice and so feels the urgency to get away from the edge as quickly as possible, a disturbing sense of attraction toward the abyss may occur. This attraction is so uncanny because the possibilities of conduct implicit in it are just as justified as those going in opposing directions.4 Sartre affirms the principle of time’s absolute discontinuity which is intimately connected to human freedom. No earlier moment can determine the following one. Every moment is in fact revolutionary, because it can challenge and question the previous one. Nothingness is thought of as the limit separating an earlier condition from a later one. In other words, nothingness allows the rise of (unconditional) human freedom. Sartre describes in depth consciousness’s nihilation both with respect to its own past and with respect to its future. Consciousness, nihilation of its own past, is exemplified by the conflicts of a gambler who decides to get rid of his addiction. However, in front of a card table he may suddenly feel an almost irresistible compulsion to play. A kind of enthusiasm invites him to gamble, as if this time will be the right time, decisive for his destiny. Sartre’s description highlights the inconsolable fragility of our past good intentions. The gambler turns his attention to his past decisions as if to piously implore them to help him now: “But what he apprehends then in anxiety is precisely the total inefficacy of the past resolution. It is there doubtless but fixed, ineffectual, surpassed by the very fact that I am conscious of it”5 (Sartre 1984, p. 33). Sartre describes a drama of freedom which involves the conflict between opposing wills. On the one hand, one is the past self that made certain resolutions. On the other hand, in the present the gambler transcends one’s own past precisely because the latter exists “for the present consciousness”: the past decision must be re-actualized to become effective. My actual self attempts to re-enact my past identity in order to find within myself the same motivations that led me to make that specific choice. The intention preventing oneself from gambling must be reached again “ex nihilo and freely” (“librement”) (Sartre 1984, p.  33). In other 4  Sartre relates the emergence of transcendent possibilities to fear. With regard to the transcendent possibilities “human activity has no place.” The question arises as to whether anxiety, and not fear, is already at the bottom of the feeling of being at the mercy of forces that overpower oneself, given that anxiety itself produces and induces a sense of impotence. But beyond this research, vaguely idle, on their relations of foundation, it is evident that the differentiation itself between fear and anxiety repeats the distinction between being-in-itself and being-for-itself. At the same time it should be added that this distinction is characterized by many ambiguities as Jean Wahl already in 1949  in his essay Esquisse pour une Histoire de l’Existentialisme (“A Short History of Existentialism”) underlined (Wahl 1949) (see also: Rizk 2011, p. 67). 5  “Mais ce qu’il saisit alors dans l’angoisse, c’est précisément la totale inefficience de la résolution passée. Elle est là, sans doute, mais figée, inefficace, dépassée du fait même que j’ai conscience d’elle.” (Sartre 1943, p. 68)

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words, one is separated from one’s own past by the nothingness of one’s own freedom through which one chooses one’s own possibilities. Consciousness as freedom has a sovereign and unconditioned power to abrogate one’s past choices. Accordingly, anxiety means that the self is always separated by nothing from its own essence constituted in the past: “And anxiety as a manifestation of freedom in the face of oneself means that man is always separated by a nothing from his essence. It is necessary to take up here the words of Hegel: Wesen ist was gewesen ist”6 (Sartre 1984, p. 35, trans. modified). The aspect that interests me most in Sartre’s analysis of anxiety is his definition of the relation between the actual self and the future self. Consciousness, proleptic nature should not merely be understood as “abstractly projecting the way I will respond to specific future circumstances”—as if the projecting of future conduct would concern only my actual self. On the contrary, the present choice implies an involvement with the future self that nevertheless remains absolutely separated from my actual self. The future self is different from the actual one. Still, its condition concerns me profoundly. Therefore, anxiety has to do with the ontological relevance of the future self, who, paradoxically—and Sartre would add the adjective tragically—does not rest on the actual self’s decisions: the future self is perfectly autonomous. The future self will do what it decides and prefers: This means that in establishing a certain conduct as a possibility and precisely because it is my possibility, I am aware that nothing can compel me to adopt that conduct. Yet I am indeed already there in the future; it is for the sake of that being which I will be there at the turning of the path that I now exert all my strength, and in this sense there is already a relation between my future being and my present being. But a nothingness has slipped into the heart of this relation; I am not the self which I will be. First I am not that self because time separates me from it. Secondly, I am not that self because what I am is not the foundation of what I will be. Finally I am not that self because no actual existent can determine strictly what I am going to be. Yet as I am already what I will be (otherwise I would not be interested in anyone being more than another), I am the self which I will be, in the mode of not being it.7 (Sartre 1984, p. 31–32)

The actual self and the future self are separated by an abyss. Their heterogeneity is a central element of the phenomenon of anxiety: “It is through my horror that I am carried toward the future, and the horror nihilates itself in that it constitutes the 6  “Et l’angoisse comme manifestation de la liberté en face de soi signifie que l’homme est toujours séparé par un néant de son essence. Il faut reprendre ici le mot de Hegel: ‘Wesen ist was gewesen ist.’” (Sartre 1943, p. 72) 7  “Cela veut dire qu’en constituant une certaine conduite comme possible et précisément parce qu’elle est mon possible, je me rends compte que rien ne peut m’obliger à tenir cette conduite. Pourtant je suis bien là-bas dans l’avenir, c’est bien vers celui que je serai tout à l’heure, au détour du sentier, que je me tends de toutes mes forces et en ce sens il y a déjà un rapport entre mon être futur et mon être présent. Mais au sein de ce rapport, un néant s’est glissé: je ne suis pas celui que je serai. D’abord je ne le suis pas parce que du temps m’en sépare. Ensuite parce que ce que je suis n’est pas le fondement de ce que je serai. Enfin parce qu’aucun existant actuel ne peut déterminer rigoureusement ce que je vais être. Comme pourtant je suis déjà ce que je serai (sinon je ne serai pas intéressé à être tel ou tel), je suis celui que je serai sur le mode de ne l’être pas.” (Sartre 1943, pp. 66–67)

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future as possible. Anxiety is precisely my consciousness of being my own future, in the mode of not-being (Sartre 1984, p. 32, trans. modified).”8 Here, the crucial point is that the sovereignty of decision is not assigned to the actual self. Rather it is attributed to the future self who I am not (yet). The future self will decide for me—it will be the autonomous origin of its own conduct: “Thus the self which I am depends on the self which I am not yet to the exact extent that the self which I am not yet does not depend on the self which I am. Vertigo appears as the apprehension of this dependence.”9 This passage is decisive in relation to the present question. Anxiety’s vertigo is the expression of a wholly peculiar impotence: that of the present self with respect to the future self. I already feel powerlessly exposed to the future self’s sovereign power to decide: the latter will autonomously decide not only about its own conduct but may also reverse my present decisions (that is, those of its past self). Undoubtedly, Sartre describes a peculiar form of pre-occupation that betrays a jealous demand for absolute sovereignty. It is as if the present self trembles before the idea of being nihilated by the future self that will exercise at its expense the same sovereign power that the present ego now exercises over the past ego. Anxiety signifies feeling the threat of being “nihilated,” almost “killed,” by one’s future self that will nullify one’s current choices. In my view, it is possible to sense something almost paranoid in this form of anxiety. Sartre equivocates regarding the connection between the future condition and the present one: (1) by orienting this relation exclusively with respect to the concept of the self, and more precisely, in terms of the link between the past self and the future self, and (2) by determining this connection in terms of sovereignty, as if the main problem in anxiety were to preserve one’s own unconditional, absolute freedom, that is, not being determined by any “other,” even by one’s own future self. Certainly, it is of fundamental importance to rigorously define the relation between the present self and the future condition. However, to interpret anxiety’s vertigo as a threatening exposure of the present self to the future one is to misunderstand the phenomenon. Anxiety is based on the phenomenon of attraction to a negative and alien power to which we feel already consigned. In Chapter 5, Sect. 1.2, I will highlight the essential role played by obscure phantasies in this respect. The constitutive role of obscure phantasies in anxiety makes it impossible to establish a defined relation between two clear scenes or “scenarios” in which two egos operate, as may occur in other presentifying acts. In different forms of presentification (such as in recollection), a clear intentional object may constitute itself: we see a past scene before us. I recollect a dinner with my friends during the hot summer of 2003 in a restaurant close to Santa Maria in Trastevere. I imagine myself standing next to San Paul in Bellini’s painting Allegoria Sacra. In both cases I dwell in a scene which is radically different from what occurs in my present perceptual 8  “C’est à travers mon horreur que je suis porté vers l’avenir et elle se néantise en ce qu’elle constitue l’avenir comme possible. C’est précisément la conscience d’être son propre avenir sur le mode du n’être-pas que nous nommerons l’angoisse.” (Sartre 1943, p. 67) 9  “Ainsi le moi que je suis dépend en lui-même du moi que je ne suis pas encore, dans l’exacte mesure où le moi que je ne suis pas encore ne dépend pas du moi que je suis. Et le vertige apparaît comme la saisie de cette dépendance.” (Sartre 1943, p. 67)

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horizon. In both cases, ego-splitting takes place: there is an ego responding to the circumstances of my actual situation and an ego understood as an attentional pole of activity and passivity operating in the imagined or recollected scenario. In anxiety, there is no threatening exposure to a future ego who may nullify the decision of the present self (and towards whom no power can be exercised) for a very simple reason: such a steady future self does not constitute itself in anxiety. As we will see later, the (distressing) future situation appears in terms of quasi-intentionality in anxiety: negative appearances follow one another without being able to give life to a defined scenario. These appearances can be seen as contradictory shadows of improbable negative events, to which one already gives unconditional credit without any apparent reason. Since no scene is consistently and coherently constituted, a clear split between two egos cannot occur. It is as if everything (negative) has already been decided in anxiety. But this negativity remains indeterminate and protean to such an extent that it is impossible that a coherent future self establishes itself in a stable enough way to become threatening for the present ego. At most one could speak of the constitution of a rhapsodic multiplicity of future selves. However, the rhapsody of multiple selves corresponding to dark and protean scenarios is so inconsistent as to advise against or, at least, to make highly problematic, the use of the term ego. Furthermore, the question of the unconditioned sovereignty of one’s own freedom is not essential to anxiety, but the pre-occupation of being exposed to what is literally Unvordenkliches is rather crucial: one is anxious of going through events that can modify one’s own identity in a radical way. To use Maldiney’s terminology, anxiety concerns the dimension of transpassability (Maldiney 1991; Richir 1992): the anxiety-provoking events are so destabilizing that they cannot be “received” and “perceived” by us in our present condition (see Chapter 5, Sect. 1.3). Now that the relation between the present self and the future self in Sartre’s analysis of anxiety has been illustrated and critically discussed, it is appropriate to highlight the specific positive teleology that operates in his account. According to Sartre, I identify myself with defined social roles and in pre-conceived attitudes in order to ward off the anxiety of my own unconditional freedom. These socially established attitudes and roles reassure me as they guide my actions in an immediate and determinate way, orienting me according to values that remain beyond question. Hearing the alarm clock in the early morning already means getting up and going to work: Now at each instant we are thrust into the world and engaged there. This means that we act before positing our possibilities and that these possibilities which are disclosed as realized or in process of being realized refer to meanings which necessitate special acts in order to be put into question. The alarm which rings in the morning refers to the possibility of my going to work, which is my possibility. But to apprehend the summons of the alarm as a summons is to get up. Therefore the very act of getting up is reassuring, for it eludes the question, “Is work my possibility?” Consequently it does not put me in a position to ­apprehend the possibility of quietism, of refusing to work, and finally the possibility of refusing the world and the possibility of death. In short, to the extent that I apprehend the meaning of the ringing, I am already up at its summons; this apprehension guarantees me against the anguished intuition that it is I who confers on the alarm clock its exigency—I and I alone.10 (Sartre 1984, pp. 37–38).

 “Or, nous sommes à chaque instant lancés dans le monde et engagés. Cela signifie que nous agissons avant de poser nos possibles et que ces possibles qui se découvrent comme réalisés ou en

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This passage reveals an essential feature of Sartre’s theory of anxiety: a direct confrontation with anxiety is systematically avoided because this would reveal to me the inconvenient truth that I myself am the one who gives value to those rules that I follow but which have no objective value in themselves. Their value ultimately relies on their being “projected” by myself as my possibilities, that is, they are ultimately grounded on my sovereign consent. If one imagines oneself falling over the precipice, different motives for adopting a specific conduct spontaneously come to mind. At the very moment, when detecting specific motives, consciousness immediately rebels against them; the motives appear to be ineffective: in its saying no to these motives, consciousness’ absolute freedom shines through: Fortunately these motives in their turn, from the sole fact that they are motives of a possibility, present themselves as ineffective, as non-determinant; they can no more produce the suicide than my horror of the fall can determine me to avoid it. It is this counter-anxiety which generally puts an end to anguish by transmuting it into indecision. Indecision in its turn, calls for decision. I abruptly put myself at a distance from the edge of the precipice and resume my way.11 (Sartre 1984, p. 32, trans. modified).

In anxiety, human freedom shows itself for the first time: its absolute character is confirmed by the ineffectiveness of one’s own motives. No motive can determine my conduct. Anxiety here fulfills a positive function in a double sense: (1) it reveals the absolute and unconditioned nature of human freedom and (2) preserves the self from (self-)destruction. The complex interplay between anxiety and counter-anxiety prevents our fall over the precipice and at the same time lets our freedom shine through. In its rebellion against every finite possibility and motive, freedom affirms its sovereignty over time and renews itself. Sartre’s position can be seen as a secularized version of Kierkegaard’s position which I will address in the next section.

2  Negative Anthropology In Chapter 5, I will (often) highlight the relevance of Kierkegaard’s account for a phenomenology of anxiety. My primary goal here is to investigate the relation between the concept of faith and the notion of anxiety with a focus on the (hidden) train de se réaliser renvoient à des sens qui nécessiteraient des actes spéciaux pour être mis en question. Le réveil qui sonne le matin renvoie à la possibilité d’aller à mon travail qui est ma possibilité. Mais saisir l’appel du réveil comme appel, c’est se lever. L’acte même de se lever est donc rassurant, car il élude la question: ‘Est-ce que le travail est ma possibilité?’ et par conséquent il ne me met pas en mesure de saisir la possibilité du quiétisme, du refus de travail et finalement du refus du monde et de la mort. En un mot, dans la mesure où saisir le sens de la sonnerie, c’est être déjà debout à son appel, cette saisie me garantit contre l’intuition angoissante que c’est moi qui confère au réveil son exigence: moi et moi seul.” (Sartre 1943, pp. 72–73) 11  “Heureusement ces motifs à leur tour, du seul fait qu’ils sont motifs d’un possible, se donnent comme inefficients, comme non déterminants: ils ne peuvent pas plus produire le suicide que mon horreur de la chute ne peut me déterminer à l’éviter. C’est cette contre-angoisse qui en général fait cesser l’angoisse en la transmuant en indécision. L’indécision, à son tour, appelle la décision: on s’éloigne brusquement du bord du précipice et on reprend sa route.” (Sartre 1943, p. 67)

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role of a positive teleology. The concept of anxiety cannot be understood without a clarification of Kierkegaard’s anthropology. In my view, a critical discussion of Michael Theunissen’s position remains essential in order to grasp the interconnection between the notion of the self, faith and anxiety from a methodological point of view. Accordingly, I will first elucidate Kierkegaard’s notion of the self with the help of Theunissen’s interpretation. Then I will analyze the relation between faith and anxiety in Kierkegaard with regard to the concept of positive teleology. Michael Theunissen develops an approach he refers to as “negative anthropology”, growing out of a critical confrontation with the concept of self that Kierkegaard elaborates in The Sickness Unto Death (Theunissen and Greve 1979; Theunissen 1991a, 1991b, 1993, 1996, 1997). In Das Selbst auf dem Grund der Verzweiflung (The Self on the Ground of Despair), Theunissen investigates the productivity and relevance of Kierkegaard’s concept of “self” in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. The relevance of the conceptualization of the self in Kierkegaard’s work essentially depends on his definition of the relation between anomaly and normality. His anthropology refuses to establish “a certain notion of health as the norm in order to judge the disease as an anomaly” (Theunissen 1991, p. 16). Instead, Kierkegaard develops an idea of health from sickness, positing that health—not disease—is the exception: self-relation is originally and directly a misrelation, such that anomaly and pathology are the unavoidable starting points. Kierkegaard’s negativistic program is clearly shown in the following passage: Anti-Climacus, the pseudonymous author of Sickness unto Death, “merely describes the sickness while he at the same time continually defines what ‘faith’ is” (Kierkegaard 1980b, p.  160). Theunissen notes how Anti-Climacus, “Instead of departing from faith and then moving towards its opposite—to the despair known as sin—he holds despair directly in front of him in such a way that he defines faith only in the analysis of its own negation” (Theunissen 1991, p. 18, note 2). Only by negation of the negative is it possible to gain the positive. Kierkegaard defines faith in terms of the annihilation of despair. Faith has no positive mode of appearance independent from anomaly, but is defined “only in the analysis of its negation” (Ibid.). It is only the negation of despair as a sickness unto death. Theunissen distinguishes content-related negativism—in the form of a deficiency of human life—from methodical negativism. The former concerns the concrete negative phenomena of affective life, such as anxiety and despair, while the latter describes a systematic procedure that takes its departure from negative phenomena in its striving towards a healthy form of life. Taking anomaly as a starting point also has a historical dimension: the negativist method presupposes the distortion of the successful form of life in “Christendom” as well as in modernity (Ibid.). To summarize, Theunissen distinguishes between three aspects of negativism: 1. Methodical-formal negativism. Here, the essential characteristics of the self are not immediately accessible, but may only be evinced on the basis of human anomalies and deformations. Research on the self takes its departure in anomaly rather than normality.

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2. Content-related negativism, which concerns the phenomena of anxiety and despair. When a negative anthropology identifies the particular properties of the self, it does not assume an already set or fixed definition but starts, rather, from concrete, specific experiences such as despair or anxiety in order to disclose and unravel the structure of the self, e.g.: “How must the self be constituted for despair to appear in the forms in which it actually shows itself?” (Theunissen 1991b, p.  353). The concept of self must be thought from the experience of despair. Theunissen recognizes a mutual dependence between self and despair.12 3. Normative negativism, which regards the historical modern situation in which authentic life has become impossible. These three aspects are closely intertwined (see: Theunissen and Greve 1979, p. 71) and together they underlie Theunissen’s interpretation of Kierkegaard’s work, notably highlighted in his Der Begriff Verzweiflung (The Concept of Despair) (1993), seen as the culmination of his lifelong confrontation with Kierkegaard’s anthropology.13 The text gives a twofold critique—both internal and external—of the structure of Sickness unto Death. The immanent critique stresses the implicit guiding presupposition of Kierkegaard’s inquiries into despair, namely that we do not want to be immediately what we are. The external critique, in Theunissen’s terms “the transcending critique”, argues for the introduction of a corrective element to the concept of despair, and to the way in which this concept is depicted in Sickness unto Death. According to Theunissen, Kierkegaard’s analysis of despair includes elements that do not belong to despair and excludes elements constitutive of it. In Sickness unto Death, the basic mistake consists in a one-sided tracing back of despair to a discrepancy in self-relation. Is it really necessary to comprehend despair on the basis of a “deficiency in relating oneself to oneself?” We find, in Kierkegaard’s analysis of so-­ called “despair of weakness” an indication of a point of view that no longer relies on either the paradigm of self-relation, or on willing (or not willing) to be oneself, that may also shed light on a deeper understanding of this phenomenon: “Here there is no infinite consciousness of the self, of what despair is, or of the condition as one of despair. The despair is only a suffering, a succumbing to the pressure of external factors; in no way does it come from within as an act” (Kierkegaard 1980b, pp. 50–51). At the stage of immediacy, despair is something that befalls me from the outside: “Now something happens that impinges (…) upon this immediate self and makes it despair. In another sense, it cannot happen at this point; since the self has no reflection, there must be an external motivation for the despair, and the despair is nothing more than a submitting” (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p.  51). According to Theunissen, in the despair of weakness, a promising alternative paradigm of despair

 However, it should not be overlooked that Theunissen ultimately tends to affirm the primacy of the self over despair, due to the prevalence of a Hegel-inspired dialectical paradigm. A post-­ Husserlian phenomenological approach would reverse this relation. 13  In 1955, a 23 year old Theunissen wrote his PhD thesis on the concept of “earnestness” in Kierkegaard (Theunissen 1958). 12

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emerges: it is no longer understood on the basis of self-relation, but as an event. Kierkegaard failed to recognize the asymmetrical relation between the despair of weakness—which has this event-like structure—and the despair of defiance, which derives from a failure of self-realization. Sickness unto Death contains a vain attempt to reverse the despair of weakness into its opposite, that is, into the despair of defiance in the form of an absolute and unrestrained willingness to be oneself (Theunissen 1993, p.  63). Theunissen views Kierkegaard’s misinterpretation of despair as also due to an ambiguity in the key concept of weakness. The concept of weakness is here related to two heterogeneous phenomena: on the one hand, it refers to the experience of suffering; of being affected by an external event. On the other hand, it relates to the lack of a positive will to be oneself. In his analysis, Kierkegaard overlooks the difference between these two components: suffering and unwillingness to be oneself are treated as identical terms. A clear differentiation between these two forms of weakness, however, sheds light on the specific character of suffering: in the despair of weakness, the despairing one suffers from “both that which provokes his despair and his own being-in-despair” (Theunissen 1993, p.  71). Kierkegaard differentiates between “affective” despair concerning that which befalls the subject, and the “subjective” conditio of being-in-despair, which takes the form of one’s relation to oneself: “It expresses the first suffering as an event that precipitates us into despair, and marks the second suffering by the turn after which despair itself overcomes us” (Ibid.). In the latter, we would have responsibility for our own being-in-despair, since this state would depend upon a deficiency or discrepancy in our self-relation. Theunissen argues that despair as being affected by an event (Widerfahrnis) is prior to this deficiency in self-relation, and finds that Kierkegaard himself confirms this primacy, at least indirectly: he begins with the former in order to argue for a originary imbalance of one’s self relation (Ibid.). Theunissen’s use of the term “phenomenology” bears a fundamental methodological ambiguity, particularly visible in his transcending critique. Aiming at describing the phenomenon of despair as such, he presupposes a Heideggerian phenomenological hermeneutics that tries to return to an original sense of experience set within a certain historical context. Theunissen’s confrontation with Kierkegaard is driven by the “thing itself” (despair), which must always be interpreted historically. Theunissen takes Kierkegaard seriously by examining his contribution to the phenomenon itself (Theunissen 1993, p.  9). However, Theunissen also remains committed to Hegel’s dialectical phenomenology. Both critiques—immanent/internal and transcending/external—remain within a dialectical perspective that sees the truth only in the whole.14 If the whole is the only truth, the beginning necessarily admits to a certain one-sidedness. Theunissen remains faithful to the Hegelian idea according to which the beginning is the origin that accomplishes itself in the course  He writes that Kierkegaard’s “version of phenomenological dialectics is open to criticism not because it endorses a Hegelianism that takes for its beginning the wrapped end, and the end as the unwrapped beginning. Both the immanent and the transcending critique were based on the completely Hegelian presupposition according to which the beginning represents the origin only insofar as the whole accomplishes itself in it.” (Theunissen 1993, p. 154).

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of the process. Nevertheless, in order to grasp the phenomenon of despair he starts from a different origin, that is, from a being affected by an event (Widerfahrnis): Just as little would somebody who distances themselves from the idea that the original appearance is that of being affected by an event (Widerfahrnis) negate the fundamental insight that, in general, there is a constraint (Befangenheit) in the appearance (Schein) which prevents what is original from showing itself in its truth at the beginning. (Ibid.)

Theunissen thus denies Kierkegaard’s fundamental claim that despair is to be understood as a failed self-relation. However, he shares Kierkegaard’s dialectical assumption that the beginning cannot display the truth. Although Theunissen himself is right to stress some similarities between Heideggerian hermeneutical phenomenology and Hegelian dialectics (Theunissen 1993, pp. 27–39), a more precise analysis of the despair of weakness as suffering can show how the phenomenological method (as an original reference to the “thing itself”) and Hegelian dialectics stand—from a methodological point of view—in a difficult relation. From a post-Husserlian perspective, being affected by an event is defined by a radical facticity and contingency that is not immediately in accord with Hegelian dialectics. Theunissen does not consider these tensions to a sufficient degree. Theunissen’s sophisticated critique pits two elements of despair—that of being affected by an event and that of a discrepancy in one’s relation to oneself—against each other, when really they belong together. His transcending critique misunderstands a decisive aspect of Kierkegaard’s analysis of the phenomenon of despair, namely, that his considerations have an ethical-edifying character. Kierkegaard aims at expounding a “hidden” and implicit presupposition that constitutes the condition of possibility for every form of despair. In order to expose this presupposition, Kierkegaard carries out a still unrivaled phenomenological analysis (also in the post-Husserlian sense) of the experience of despair. From a systematic point of view, Kierkegaard, however, does not aim at describing despair in its specific mode of manifestation—in the “how” of its appearance. His intention is primarily “therapeutic.” Theunissen’s transcending critique fails to recognize this decisive aspect of Kierkegaard’s investigations. Kierkegaard’s aim is to indicate, by referring back to faith, the necessary conditions for the impossibility of despair. Despair cannot exercise its power over the human being when the self, in its relation to itself, and in willing to be itself, “rests transparently in the power that established it” (Kierkegaard 1980b, p. xii). Faith can be characterized as that countervailing power that hinders our immediate consent to despair. In the very moment in which a negative event unexpectedly occurs to us, human beings tend to consent to the pathos of despair, as if everything were already lost. Despair stands on the verge of an outbreak. This tendency toward despair is closely connected to the internal logic of desire: one identifies oneself in one’s own totality with that which is desired. In Kierkegaard’s own language one could say that, thanks to the infinite passion of imagination, something earthly becomes the earthly in its totality (Theunissen 1993, p. 59) (see Chapter 5, Sect. 5.4). From Kierkegaard’s perspective, the indispensable task lies in opening up the possibility of a definitive immunization against despair, as the following passage from Works of Love attests:

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3  Anxiety Between Negative Connotation and Positive Teleology: Sartre, Kierkegaard… I do not have the right to become insensitive to life’s pain, because I shall sorrow; but neither do I have the right to despair, because I shall sorrow; and neither do I have the right to stop sorrowing, because I shall sorrow. So it is with love. You do not have the right to become insensitive to this feeling, because you shall love; but neither do you have the right to love despairingly, because you shall love; and just as little do you have the right to warp this feeling in you, because you shall love. You shall preserve love, and you shall preserve yourself and by and in preserving yourself preserve love. (Kierkegaard 1995, p. 43)

My interpretation has much in common with the one developed by Arne Grøn in his critical confrontation with Theunissen: Kierkegaard does not need to deny that there are situations of despair. His point of view is ethical, based on the idea that, precisely in such situations, one shall not allow oneself to despair. The hope one cannot give up is a hope despite the situation. When Kierkegaard stresses the fundamental self-relation in despair, so he is implicitly claiming that this self-­ relation opens up the possibility to resist despair. (Grøn 1996, p. 50)

Kierkegaard’s claim should be interpreted as an ethical-edifying point of view.15 Despair is related to one’s self-relation, since it presupposes an acceptance of despair: Despairing is to give up hope and to lose courage—the courage to carry oneself in leading one’s life. Only in this sense is Kierkegaard’s claim to be defended: that despair comes ‘from within’ in that despairing is something the one despairing ‘does.’ He does it to himself, by himself: he gives himself up. (Grøn 2014, p. 256)

The most important point relates to the question how not to consent to despair. Such a perspective does not implicate a moralization of despair as Theunissen suggests in his reply to Grøn’s critique: “Kierkegaard carries his moralism to extremes precisely at the moment when he forbids despair at all costs” (Theunissen 1996, p. 78). The point is neither to judge the one despairing nor to forbid despair for moral reasons. Rather, the point is to identify the moment of despair in order to find an escape from it. Only when one finds the extraordinary perspective of faith and is thereby able to truly relate to the power on which one depends, does it become possible to avoid approving of despair. Approval of despair presupposes that one forgets that one stands before God. The feeling according to which everything is possible in God is inherent to the experience of praying: “For prayer there must be a God, a self—and possibility—or a self and possibility in a pregnant sense, because the being of God means that everything is possible, or that everything is possible means the being of God” (Kierkegaard 1980b, p. 40).16 Faith entails a transformation in the sense of a correction of the immediate discrepancy in one’s relation to oneself. Kierkegaard accepts that we are constantly responsible for our despair since despair always involves an instance of freedom in the form of approval, directly connected with our relation with ourselves. Despair evolves in the temporal form of  I think it is more appropriate to use the expression “ethical-edifying” point of view, rather than to speak, as Grøn does, of an ethical point of view, since faith is the anchor of Kierkegaard’s whole investigation into despair. 16  Theunissen calls Kierkegaard’s definition of God unorthodox. A critique of this idea would go beyond the scope of the present chapter. 15

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a continuous “actualization” (Kierkegaard 1980b, p. 12). Kierkegaard’s concept of despair is disturbing as it confounds very different phenomena: how can we judge the life of a happy father or a successful manager as one of despair? Inauthentic despair, where one is unaware of one’s eternal self, poses serious difficulties, because the moment of being affected by an event (Widerfahrnis) is here absent or present only in the remote background. With what authority can Kierkegaard claim that such a life is desperate? It is crucial to keep in mind that Kierkegaard describes the whole phenomenon of despair from the extraordinary point of view of eternity. It is this that affords some plausibility to Kierkegaard’s claim that unconscious despair exists; a claim that would be problematic from a post-Husserlian point of view: This is the state in despair. No matter how much the despairing person avoids it, no matter how successfully he has completely lost himself (especially the case in the form of despair that is ignorance of being in despair) and lost himself in such a manner that the loss is not at all detectable—eternity nevertheless will make it manifest that his condition was despair and will nail him to himself so that his torment will still be that he cannot rid himself of his self, and it will become obvious that he was just imagining that he had succeeded in doing so. (Kierkegaard 1980b, p. 21)

For Kierkegaard, despair not only presupposes God’s revelation, but also has an eschatological character. Despair, then, is not primarily provoked by outside events, but is rather a conditio linked to the original discrepancy in one’s relation to oneself. It is only for this reason that ignorance of one’s own being-in-despair can be a form of despair. The healthy self must be conceived of as starting from disease: “The formula that describes the state of the self when despair is completely rooted out is this: in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it” (Kierkegaard 1980b, p. 14). Although the starting point is sickness, the whole process is viewed from the perspective of health understood as a solution to contradictions. The inversion of the relation between the order of knowledge and the order of exposition presupposes a point of view by which the whole process can be systematically judged and determined. In this sense, it is appropriate to return to the quote above, where a normative idea of the human being is expressed according to the negativity of despair. All negative phenomena, including despair and fear, “are related to states in which the human being still is not, or is not anymore, what it should be” (Kierkegaard 1980b, p.  17). The healthy self is therefore always taken into account, “since the self is what it is only in its realization.”17 We must start with sickness in order to describe the healthy life. Yet, conversely, the whole process is led by the normative idea of self-realization: the negativism presupposes an immanent telos of the process, which brings about the

 “The necessity of dissolving the self into being-oneself, which Kierkegaard, in turn, dissolves, in a never-ending becoming-oneself, is also the reason that he does not first treat the self as such and in a second moment—separately—the healthy self. Actually, when he speaks about the self, he is already considering the healthy self, because the self is what it is only in its realization. But if the self is healthy only by resisting the danger of despair, then it must be interpreted as starting from sickness, because it reaches health only by combatting it.” (Theunissen 1991, p. 34).

17

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resolution of contradictions and is connected to the methodological moment of a totalization of experience.18 It is interesting to note how faith—the result of the inquiry into despair—takes on an ambiguous position in the whole architectonic of Kierkegaard’s research: it is the point of culmination of the entire process—it is the truth as a whole in Hegel’s sense. Meanwhile, it paradoxically falls outside of the process, because it embodies a state of exception that presupposes the process of totalization: the conditio of despair is indeed considered a general condition. All human beings are in despair. Only the one who is able to find faith escapes despair. To summarize, Theunissen’s interpretation of Kierkegaard’s notion of despair, albeit sophisticated, does not do justice to the tensions between the two different ‘phenomenological’ traditions. Kierkegaard’s analysis does not primarily aim to describe the phenomenon of despair, but to find immunity against it through faith. Only faith is capable of radically annihilating despair. Theunissen’s emphasis on this shows that the normative idea of self-realization in (and through) faith dominates Kierkegaard’s analysis of despair from the outset. The question here is whether it is possible to explore alternative interpretations. Would it be possible to accept Kierkegaard’s assumption that faith undermines the very conditions for the possibility of despair while simultaneously rejecting the normative idea of selfrealization, which is not compatible with a (post-Husserlian) phenomenological perspective? In what follows, I intend to retrace a similar tension between a dialectical method and a (post-Husserlian) phenomenological description of anxiety, with special focus on the relation between anxiety and faith.

3  Is Anxiety Subordinated to Faith? Kierkegaard emphasizes different forms of ambiguity of anxiety. Here I intend to note three of them that are intimately interconnected. 1. The first ambiguity is precisely expressed by Arne Grøn: “What does anxiety mean when it is both that from which one should free oneself and, at the same time, that which one has to go through to be free?” (Grøn 2008, p. 2). If we want to become ourselves, we cannot avoid anxiety, since we can become ourselves only by facing anxiety. Anxiety is not just a threat; a good relation to anxiety is also a necessary condition for a healthy self-relation. We have go through anxiety in order to get rid of it. 2. The second ambiguity regards the difficulty of going through anxiety: We fear anxiety and are attracted by it. Our freedom emerges in and through anxiety. The imagination—the faculty of projection of infinite possibilities—forges our identities in the fires of anxiety. Meanwhile, the spell of anxiety tends to exert its  Theunissen rightly emphasizes that faith is not subjected to the “automatism” of Hegel’s dialectics. It is not necessary to pursue all negative steps of despair in order to reach faith.

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(almost irresistible) force of attraction, absorbing us. We cannot immediately get out of it; it is very easy to remain burning in that fire. In Kierkegaard’s words, “When we consider the dialectical determinations of anxiety, it appears that exactly these have psychological ambiguity. Anxiety is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy”5 (Kierkegaard 1980a, p. 155). Perhaps precisely for this reason, the image of dizziness always recurs, exemplifying the sensation of an abyss that frightens us and, at the same time, attracts us (see Chapter 5, Sects. 3.1 and 4.2): Anxiety may be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason for this? It is just as much in his own eye as in the abyss, for suppose he had not looked down. Hence anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down into its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself. Freedom succumbs in this dizziness. Further than this, psychology cannot and will not go. (Kierkegaard 1980a, p. 61).19

3. The third ambiguity of anxiety concerns the projection of possibility that always involves a sense of impossibility: in anxiety we experience the powerlessness of our own power. We face the double possibility of becoming ourselves, and of our estrangement. Anxiety is anxiety before situations in which decisions could radically transform one’s identity. Each change entails the risk of losing oneself—of becoming alien to oneself—as if it were a journey without return: “In anxiety we step and where we can come to see ourselves as a stranger” (Grøn 2008, p. 8). Grøn points out that Concept of Anxiety contains a disappointing lack of information on the relation of anxiety to God and faith. Does faith annul anxiety? In a famous passage Kierkegaard writes in this regard: “Faith does not thereby annihilate anxiety, but, itself eternally young, it extricates itself from anxiety’s moment of death. Only faith is able to do this, for only in faith is the synthesis eternal and at every moment possible” (Kierkegaard 1980a, 117). Faith does not annihilate anxiety as it annihilates despair. Faith here seems to counter the spiral of negative (im-) possibility defining anxiety. Still, anxiety is subordinated to faith. This is the key point. Anxiety has the positive function of saving the individual by detachment from finitude. Anxiety teaches us a lesson. It has a symptomatic value, as if it said to us: too intense an attachment to something concrete has taken place. Anxiety largely depends on one’s own over-identification with the concrete situation, or with a determinate social role; anxiety always refers to finite attachment and over-identification. This over-­identification shows oblivion of our (infinite) task: What anxiety is supposed to reveal is that the individual himself is more than what he is determined or viewed to be. Anxiety detaches the individual from the context by which he

 This passage would deserve a more meticulous analysis that is not possible for me to carry out here. I limit myself to posing a critical question: is it legitimate to affirm that freedom succumbs? Would it not be more appropriate to state that the spirit (and not freedom) faints in its attempt to relate to itself and thus to stop the infinite vortex of its own possibilities?

19

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3  Anxiety Between Negative Connotation and Positive Teleology: Sartre, Kierkegaard… would otherwise be absorbed. This consciousness of being something other and more than what we are determined to be is the consciousness of being a person. (Grøn 2008, pp. 71–72)

Is it legitimate to affirm, from a phenomenological perspective, that anxiety leads to faith? Or does this assumption imply a dialectical method that presupposes the result (faith as a solution to contradictions)? Does this method do justice to the appearances of anxiety? Are the two approaches—dialectical and phenomenological—in tension here? As mentioned above, in the last part of The Concept of Anxiety Kierkegaard underlines the positive function of anxiety for faith. Anxiety acts like a fire that burns all the inconsistencies of our symbolic identities and social roles. It questions and compromises our natural identification with that which we possess, with our performances, and with social recognition. We can thus understand Kierkegaard’s statement that one ought to be glad to be “searched” by anxiety. Anxiety disturbs and interrupts our identification with finitude, and thus helps us to open up to infinity. In my view, this consequence – the “thus” – is all but obvious. Why must or should anxiety lead to faith? Can anxiety be treated as a goad of the flesh that reminds us that our natural being is out of balance concerning the synthesis between finite and infinite, between possibility and necessity? Can awareness of this imbalance lead to faith? Is there a positive function inherent in the dynamic of anxiety? In other words: Does anxiety entail a positive teleology? I submit—against Kierkegaard—that it is not possible to retrace any positive teleology in anxiety (see Chapter 5, Sect. 5.1). Before addressing my own doubts as regards the positive teleology in anxiety, it is necessary to understand Kierkegaard’s own position. The implicit link between anxiety and faith in The Concept of Anxiety is made explicit in the later Sickness unto Death. As already seen, there, God is defined as everything being possible: “For God is everything possible and that everything is possible is God” (Kierkegaard 1980b, p. 40). Faith consists in this openness to unlimited possibilities—to the possibility of the impossible. From this perspective, we see that anxiety may enhance our sense of unlimited possibilities by detaching us from our attachment to finite and inconsistent identities. Still, it is crucial to ask whether anxiety is capable of sharpening and improving our openness to possibility in terms of faith. Kierkegaard qualifies anxiety in negative terms with great phenomenological precision. Here, it is appropriate to quote one of the most inspired passages in The Concept of Anxiety: And no Grand Inquisitor has such dreadful torments in readiness as anxiety has, and no secret agent knows as cunningly as anxiety how to attack his suspect in his weakest moment or to make alluring the trap in which he will be caught, and no discerning judge understands how to interrogate and examine the accused as does anxiety, which never lets the accused escape, neither through amusement, nor by noise, nor during work, neither by day nor by night.20 (Kierkegaard 1980a, pp. 155-6)

20

 In Chapter 5, Sect. 4.2, I will consider Kierkegaard’s passage more closely.

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However, Kierkegaard holds that this negative modality is subordinated to a positive function leading to faith. We must recall that, in our confrontation with anxiety, we can also succumb. We cannot be certain that anxiety will help us find the healthy relation to ourselves in faith. In other words, anxiety could disturb the subjective homeostasis in such an invasive way that it creates the condition for losing ourselves (i.e. perdition). Kierkegaard highlights, without any hesitation, the dangers inherent in a confrontation with anxiety: However, I will not deny that whoever is educated by possibility is exposed to danger, not that of getting into bad company and going astray in various ways as are those educated by the finite, but the danger of a fall, namely, suicide. If at the beginning of his education he misunderstands the anxiety, so that it does not lead him to faith but away from faith, then he is lost. On the other hand, whoever is educated [by possibility] remains with anxiety; he does not permit himself to be deceived by its countless falsifications and accurately remembers the past. Then the assaults of anxiety, even though they be terrifying, will not be such that he flees from them. For him, anxiety becomes a serving spirit that against its will leads him where he wishes to go. (Kierkegaard 1980a, pp. 158–159)

The above use of “misunderstanding” betrays Kierkegaard’s position that anxiety entails a teleological tendency towards faith. On the other hand, it also shows the ambiguous power of anxiety: it can always mislead us. One who suffers from anxiety can misunderstand its function. However, if we do not misunderstand anxiety— if we are ready to undergo its scrutiny—, we become its master and are able to bend its will. Hegel’s influence on Kierkegaard is particularly visible in his dialectic approach to the development and the formation (Bildung) of the self also here. Kierkegaard’s Concept of Anxiety can be seen as a miniature Phenomenology of Spirit. The end of the process (faith as a solution to contradictions) serves as a guiding thread for the adventurous development of the self, in which different steps are necessary for reaching a specifically mature and healthy form of self-relation before the Other. Anxiety fulfills here a specific function leading to faith. On the contrary, phenomenological analyses of anxiety tend to insist on its negative character, by which no trace of a positive teleology leading to faith is to be found. Anxiety tends to lead us to where we do not want to go. If there is an inherent immanent teleology of anxiety, it is that of self-negation (see Chapter 5, Sect. 5.1). Not only Kierkegaard, but also Heidegger, perhaps in an even more dramatic way, misunderstood the negativity of this teleology.

4  Nothing and Being: Against Parmenides There is likely no other affect in the context of psychoanalysis, which has become the object of more profound and detailed investigations than anxiety. It suffices to remind ourselves of pivotal Freud’s writing, Hemmung, Symptom und Angst (1991/1920), Lacan’s Seminar X (2004/2014) or Laplanche’s work Angoisse (1980).

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The situation is very different in the field of phenomenology. If we exclude the success of Sartre’s contribution after the Second World War, it would be not exaggerating to say that Heidegger’s account has almost monopolized this area of research. To show the positive teleology in Heidegger’s account of anxiety, I will focus on Was is Metaphysik? (“What is Metaphysics?”, 1976/1998). Heidegger’s inaugural lecture Was ist Metaphysik? deserves special attention for several reasons. I confine myself to mentioning two of them which are likely not the least significant. First, Was ist Metaphysik? is certainly one of Heidegger’s writings that had attracted the greatest interest outside the hermeneutic-phenomenological tradition, triggering a violent controversy. Was ist Metaphysik? is at the crossroads of the first confrontation between the two fronts bearing the unfortunate names of “analytic philosophy” and “continental philosophy.” In the context of analytic philosophy, Was ist Metaphysik? is mostly considered a paradigmatic model of a sophistic, scholastic and cryptic line of argumentation, which is burdened by serious logical errors in its unconstrained prophetic gestures.21 Secondly, this text has great significance within the phenomenological tradition. Only after this prolusion did Husserl become fully aware that Heidegger’s way of doing philosophy was—to put it euphemistically— not in line with his own: the prolusion is the “decisive step” made by Heidegger to show the irreducible difference between his philosophy and Husserl’s phenomenology: The decisive step was taken by Heidegger himself, and on a public occasion. He held his inaugural lecture ‘What is Metaphysics?’ in Freiburg on July 24, 1929. There was no mention of Husserl or phenomenology in it; however, concerning Heidegger’s autonomous development, one may consider it as his ‘farewell to phenomenology.’ At any rate, Husserl might have understood it as such a departure. Therefore, at the end of July and August 1929, he devoted ‘2 months both to the study of Sein und Zeit as well as of the more recent writings in order to reach a sober and definitive position on Heidegger’s philosophy.’ The first, ‘sober’ and penetrating engagement with Heidegger’s work finally brought Husserl to realizing that for years he had remained caught up in delusions about his philosophy. ‘I came to the conclusion that I could not place the work within the framework of my phenomenology, but, unfortunately, also that I had to reject it altogether methodologically and essentially also matter related.’22 (Schuhmann 1978, 602)

 Ayer (1959) famously speaks of “charlatanism” in relation to Heidegger’s prolusion. See Critchley 2001. See also Conant 2001. 22  “Der entscheidende Schritt wurde von Heidegger selber, und zwar bei öffentlicher Gelegenheit, getan. Am 24. Juli 1929 hielt er in Freiburg seine Antrittsvorlesung ‘Was ist Metaphysik?’. Von Husserl oder Phänomenologie war darin keine Rede; im Sinn von Heideggers eigenständiger Entwicklung ist sie aber als sein ‘Abschied von der Phänomenologie’ bezeichnet worden. Husserl jedenfalls dürfte sie als ein solches Sichabsetzen verstanden haben. Ende Juli und August 1929 wandte er daher, ‘um zu einer nüchtern-endgültigen Stellung zur Heideggerschen Philosophie zu kommen, 2 Monate dem Studium von Sein und Zeit sowie der neueren Schriften’ zu.. Die erstmalige, ‘nüchterne’ und eindringliche Beschäftigung mit Heideggers Werk brachte Husserl schließlich zu der Einsicht, dass er jahrelang über dessen Philosophie in Täuschungen befangen geblieben war. ‘Ich kam zum Resultat, dass ich das Werk nicht dem Rahmen meiner Phänomenologie einordnen kann, leider aber auch, dass ich es methodisch ganz und gar und im Wesentlichen auch sachlich ablehnen muss.’” (Schuhmann 1978, p. 602) 21

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Here, my primary concern is to closely scrutinize the phenomenological precision of Heidegger’s analysis of anxiety. In order to do so, it is first essential to do justice to the complexity of Heidegger’s argument, just as it is necessary to determine the position of Heidegger’s concept of “nothing” within the framework of the metaphysical tradition. Only then will we be able to fully understand the positive teleology of anxiety in Heidegger’s account. All metaphysical questions are directed at the whole. If metaphysics addresses the whole, the questioner must necessarily be involved in the metaphysical investigation: “From this we conclude that metaphysical inquiry must be posed as a whole and from the essential position of the Dasein that questions. We are questioning, here and now, for ourselves. Our Dasein—in the community of researchers, teachers, and students—is determined by science”23 (Heidegger 1998, p. 82). Is it legitimate to assert that our existence, our Dasein, is defined by science? Is such an assertion not one-sided and premature? Does this assumption not entail the risk of giving too much relevance to a specific human activity carried out in an elitist context, such as academic research? How can we overlook the mismatch between the privileged, almost self-complacent point of view of Heidegger’s starting point and his overall goal of investigating and understanding the concepts of Being – as well as of nothingness – in general? At the same time, one could argue that Heidegger’s fidelity to phenomenology is to be found exactly in the fact that his immediate starting point is anchored in his life-world: What should the philosopher begin with, if not his concrete situation? If one bears in mind that Heidegger read his text aloud as an inaugural lecture in an auditorium at Freiburg University on 24th July 1929, his assertion that “our existence (Dasein) is determined by science” appears, if not fully justified, then, at least, less arbitrary.24 Still, taking scientific existence as the starting point for dealing with the question of nothingness is neither self-evident nor value-free. Different sciences develop approaches to their specific areas of investigation. Accordingly, each science has its proper object.25 Nevertheless, all sciences refer to the world in order to investigate beings themselves: “Yet when we follow their most proper intention, in all the sciences we adopt a stance toward beings themselves”26 (Heidegger 1998, p.  83). Each science aims at showing, in accordance with its  “Das metaphysische Fragen muss im Ganzen und aus der wesentlichen Lage des fragenden Daseins gestellt werden. Wir fragen, hier und jetzt. Unser Dasein—in der Gemeinschaft von Forschern, Lehrern und Studierenden—ist durch die Wissenschaft bestimmt.” (Heidegger 1976, p. 103) 24  It is noteworthy that the text included in Wegmarken (“Pathmarks”) is not identical to the prolusion held on 24th July 1929 (see Heidegger 2018). 25  “The relation to the world that pervades all the sciences as such lets them seek beings themselves in order to make them objects of investigation and to determine their grounds—in each case according to their particular content and manner of being. According to the idea behind them, in the sciences we approach what is essential in all things.” (Heidegger 1998, p. 83) 26  “Und doch—in allen Wissenschaften verhalten wir uns, ihrem eigensten Absehen folgend, zum Seienden selbst.” Ibid. Here it is not possible to raise the question of whether it is legitimate to assert that all science relates to beings. To what extent is this reduction of the various areas of 23

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specific methodology, how the originary way that being appear to us. This possibility presupposes the free stance (Haltung) of the human being who decides to pursue science27: The human being—one being among others—‘pursues science.’ In this ‘pursuit’ nothing less transpires than the irruption by one called ‘the human being’ into the whole of beings, indeed in such a way that in and through this irruption beings break open and show what they are and how they are. The irruption that breaks open, in its way, helps beings to themselves for the first time.”28 (Heidegger 1998, p. 83)

With regard to the concept of irruption (Einbruch), the relevance of the human being for ontology comes to the fore: the manifestation of the world as totality of beings is essentially linked to human beings. At this point, one may recognize the echoes of notions that were widespread in the Italian Renaissance and that were particularly influenced by neo-Platonic philosophy, such as Ficinus’ idea of copula mundi. In relation to scientific existence, Heidegger has until this point emphasized the intertwining of three different terms: relation to the world (Weltbezug), stance (Haltung), and irruption (Einbruch). I quote the long passage that follows, as it is crucial for understanding the line of argumentation of Heidegger’s Was ist Metaphysik?: This trinity—relation to the world, stance, and irruption—in its radical (“wurzelhaft”) unity brings a luminous simplicity and aptness of Dasein to scientific existence. If we are to take explicit possession of the Dasein illuminated in this way for ourselves, then we must say: That to which the relation to the world refers are beings themselves – and nothing besides. That from which every stance takes its guidance are beings themselves – and nothing further. That with which the scientific confrontation in the irruption occurs are beings themselves  – and beyond that, nothing. But what is remarkable is that, precisely in the way scientific man secures to himself what is most properly his, he speaks, whether explicitly or not, of something different. What should be examined are beings only, and besides that – nothing; beings alone, and further – nothing; solely beings, and beyond that – nothing. What about this nothing? Is it an accident that we talk this way so automatically? Is it only a manner of speaking – and nothing else?29 (Heidegger 1998, p. 84) knowledge and their highly heterogeneous approaches to a single ontological language appropriate? In this regard, Duns Scotus’s influence on Heidegger’s account is particularly visible. 27  “This distinctive relation to the world in which we turn toward beings themselves is supported and guided by a freely chosen stance of human existence.” (Heidegger 1998, p. 83) 28   “Der Mensch—ein Seiendes unter anderem—“treibt Wissenschaft.” Bei diesem Treiben geschieht nichts Geringeres als der Einbruch eines Seienden, genannt Mensch, in das Ganze des Seienden, so zwar, dass in und durch diesen Einbruch das Seiende in dem, was und wie es ist, aufbricht. Der aufbrechende Einbruch verhilft in seiner Weise dem Seienden zu ihm selbst.” (Heidegger 1976, p. 105) 29  “Dieses Dreifache—Weltbezug, Haltung, Einbruch—bringt in seiner wurzelhaften Einheit eine befeuernde Einfachheit und Schärfe des Da-seins in die wissenschaftliche Existenz. Wenn wir das so durchleuchtete wissenschaftliche Da-sein für uns ausdrücklich in Besitz nehmen, dann müssen wir sagen: Worauf der Weltbezug geht, ist das Seiende selbst—und sonst nichts. Wovon alle Haltung ihre Führung nimmt, ist das Seiende selbst—und weiter nichts. Womit die forschende Auseinandersetzung im Einbruch geschieht, ist das Seiende selbst—und darüber hinaus nichts. Aber merkwürdig—gerade in dem, wie der wissenschaftliche Mensch sich seines Eigensten versichert, spricht er, ob ausdrücklich oder nicht, von einem Anderen. Erforscht werden soll nur das

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Heidegger intends to question the dominant metaphysical tradition incapable of doing justice to the notion of the nothing. This tradition also defines the relation of science to the nothing: the nothing is considered an irrelevant phantasy, a pure nullity: “Science wants to know nothing of the nothing. But even so it is certain that when science tries to express its proper essence it calls upon the nothing for help”30 (Heidegger 1976, p. 105). It is noteworthy that Heidegger’s formulation (“That to which the relation to the world refers are being themselves – and nothing besides etc.”) subtly leads to the conclusion that nothingness belongs to the essence of science. Is the addition of “nothing besides” (‘sonst nichts’) really necessary? Is it unavoidable? Would it not be possible to use a different formulation? Let us rephrase Heidegger’s sentence as follows: science exclusively refers to beings. Would the word “exclusively” then relate to the concept of the nothing to the same degree as the expression “nothing besides” (“sonst nichts”) does? I do not intend to directly address the problem of whether it is legitimate to affirm an inner connection between the notion of the nothing and science. Rather, I would prefer to emphasize that Heidegger’s attempt to define science becomes something very different, as if science itself had directly spoken, as if Heidegger’s chosen formulation (“sonst nichts”—“nothing besides”) were an immediate expression of science itself regarding its proper essence: “But even so it is certain that when science tries to express its proper essence it calls upon the nothing for help.” Here, we witness a masterfully hidden self-attestation, almost a self-­certification, in which Heidegger subtly treats his own word as the word of the thing itself: it is as if science itself had unequivocally shown itself in Heidegger’s prolusion. To put it ironically: it is as if the attempt of science to express its proper essence curiously coincides with Heidegger’s analysis of science. Still, it is important to avoid a possible misunderstanding: certainly, Heidegger’s approach is highly problematic, since a subtle manipulation of science’s expression takes place in it, a manipulation which is profoundly analogous to the subtle art of (philosophical) ventriloquism. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the question about the nothing could not belong to the (repressed) essence of science. It cannot be ruled out that a highly problematic and manipulative approach may lead to a significant question. In the reception of Was ist Metaphysik?, much attention has been directed to the already quoted passage: “What should be examined are beings only, and besides that – nothing; beings alone, and further – nothing; solely beings, and beyond that – nothing. What about this nothing? Is it an accident that we talk this way so automatically? Is it only a manner of speaking – and nothing else?”31 (Heidegger 1998, Seiende und sonst—nichts; das Seiende allein und weiter—nichts; das Seiende einzig und darüber hinaus—nichts. Wie steht es um dieses Nichts? Ist es Zufall, dass wir ganz von selbst so sprechen? Ist es nur so eine Art zu reden—und sonst nichts?” (Heidegger 1976, p. 105) 30  “Die Wissenschaft will vom Nichts nichts wissen. Aber ebenso gewiss bleibt bestehen: dort, wo sie ihr eigenes Wesen auszusprechen versucht, ruft sie das Nichts zu Hilfe. Was sie verwirft, nimmt sie in Anspruch.” (Heidegger 1976, p. 106) 31  “Erforscht werden soll nur das Seiende und sonst—nichts; das Seiende allein und weiter— nichts; das Seiende einzig und darüber hinaus—nichts. Wie steht es um dieses Nichts? Ist es Zufall,

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p. 84). Rudolf Carnap holds that in this passage the trickery, e.g. the logical mistake in Heidegger’s argument, is particularly apparent: the adverb “nothing” is illegitimately converted into a noun, the ‘nothing,’ as if this transformation was nothing. Carnap considers Heidegger’s passage to be a paradigmatic case of the nature typical of metaphysical pseudostatements (Scheinsätze). Pseudostatements are, strictly speaking, meaningless. They may be compatible with syntax; the “rules of sentence formation” of a natural language are met, but pseudo-statements still do not withstand logical analysis. Pseudostatements can be unmasked if submitted to logical or empirical verification (Carnap 1932, p.  229). Heidegger’s argument commits a ‘metaphorical’ mistake typical of metaphysics: “the word ‘nothing’ is used as a noun (Gegenstandname)” (Carnap 1932, p. 230). In ordinary language, words are usually meaningful. In the course of time their original meaning can change and they can turn into pseudo-concepts. The concept of ‘nothing’ is one of the rare cases of a word which is meaningless from the very beginning. The statement “there is nothing” is a flagrant self-contradiction. Heidegger himself pointed out this plain truth (Carnap 1932, p. 198). Nevertheless, Heidegger expresses his sovereign indifference to the basic requirements of logic. Such an indifference could perhaps be justified if the word “nothing” were to point to a specific experience. However, the above-mentioned passage from Was ist Metaphysik? shows an unjustified hypostatization of the adverb ‘nothing’—unequivocally demonstrating that no interpretation referring to an alleged experience is viable: “The combination of ‘only, and besides that – nothing’ clearly shows that the word ‘nothing’ has the usual meaning of a logical particle, which is used to express a negated existence sentence”32 (Carnap 1932, p. 231). In my view, an objection of purely logical-linguistic nature against Heidegger’s account risks missing the actual point of his investigation. The major difference between Heidegger and Carnap lies in their different definitions of the relation between experience and language. According to Carnap experience is reducible to the empirical observation of states of affairs. The principle of verification should assess the validity of a statement based on scientific knowledge (it is noteworthy that Carnap’s critical concept of “a given” remains unthematized and unquestioned). According to Heidegger, specific experiences open up a different world. In this respect, the role of attunement is of utmost importance. Attunements such as anxiety or boredom cannot be considered affective manifestations of a psychological nature which give some provisional color to the cognitive contents. Anxiety is a mood that offers a different manifestation of the world as a whole of beings. It is anything but a coincidence that Heidegger’s research on nothingness has resonated inside and outside philosophy. Certainly, there are various reasons for Heidegger’s appeal, including the elegant structure of his elaboration of the daß wir ganz von selbst so sprechen? Ist es nur so eine Art zu reden—und sonst nichts?” (Heidegger 1976, p. 105) 32  “Aus der Zusammenstellung von ‚nur und und sonst nichts‘ ergibt sich deutlich, dass das Wort ‚nichts‘die übliche Bedeutung eines logischen Partikel hat, die zum Ausdruck eines negierten Existenzsatzes dient.” (Carnap 1932, p. 231)

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question: his narrative evokes a real sense of suspense in the reader (and even more in the listener), as if the question about the nothing is right now, for the first time, originally addressed. After the lecture, H.W. Petzet reports: “It was as if a gigantic flash of lightning was rending a darkness-clothed sky … in almost painful brightness the things of the world lay revealed … it was not a matter of a system, but of existence … It had me speechless when I left the Aula. I felt as though for a moment I had gazed at the foundations of the world”33 (Safranski 1998, p. 178). Certainly, this has to do with Heidegger’s sophisticated use of the fundamental philosophical concepts of being and nothing that reveals a rare mastery of the metaphysical tradition and almost hypnotizes the reader. Still, one of the reasons for his relevance is that Heidegger’s analysis also points to a specific (and perhaps even too specific) experience of the nothingness, as we will see in the next sections. It is not too difficult to imagine a dialogue between an orthodox analytic philosopher and an adept of Heidegger’s philosophy: the analytic philosopher might sarcastically say that Was ist Metaphysik? has nothing to say. With barely concealed triumph, Heidegger’s adherent would probably answer that this is likely the case, but that it should be understood in a completely different sense which remains undetected to his/her opponent. The polemical exchange between the two interlocutors can endlessly continue in a quite unpleasant way. Ernst Tugendhat’s essay Sein und Nichts (Being and Nothingness) may be seen as an attempt to open a constructive dialogue between the two fronts: Tugendhat defends the validity of the law of logic, while doing justice to Heidegger’s profound philosophical intentions. Still, he also emphasizes the problematic features of Heidegger’s approach to the notion of the nothing. He questions Heidegger’s thesis according to which the meaning of ‘nothingness’ is a self-evident fact in natural language that can be taken for granted. In Tugendhat’s view, Heidegger’s notion of the nothing relates to a problematic use of this concept within the philosophical tradition rather than being in continuity with ordinary language (Tugendhat 1970, p. 154). According to Tugendhat, Heidegger’s perspective is on solid ground, but his formulations are misleading. Indeed, it is accurate to say that in anxiety one cannot hold on to anything, i.e. to no-thing. Nevertheless, it is questionable to hold that in anxiety one is confronted with nothingness. Tugendhat even goes so far as to claim that Heidegger could have “hardly seriously mean[t] his subtle conversion of the adverb ‘nothing’ into the noun ‘nothing’” (Tugendhat 1970, p. 153): behind Heidegger’s baroque formulations one can discern the common meaning of nothing as not something. Accordingly, it is inappropriate to overemphasize the significance of the concept of the nothing here. It should be thought of as “mere addition” (“als blosser Zusatz”), almost an ornament: actually, the notion of the nothing could even be omitted “without any loss” (Tugendhat 1970, p. 157). According to Tugendhat, Heidegger’s analysis of anxiety is philosophically relevant because it illuminates a real experience. Hence, if one 33  “Es war, als spalte ein riesiger Blitz jenen dunkel verhangenen Himmel … in einer fast sehtnerzenden Helle lagen die Dinge der Welt offen da … es ging nicht um ein > System can only again draw its truth itself from originary data. Every statement which does no more than confer expression on such data by simple explication and by means of significations precisely conforming to them is, as we said at the beginning of this chapter, actually an absolute beginning called upon to serve as a foundation as principium in the genuine sense of the world.11 (Husserl 1982, pp. 52-53)

Each new intuition can open up the novel horizon of its own meaning. It is therefore not surprising that phenomenology has been particularly successful in those areas of research such as psychopathology, cultural anthropology, and philosophy of religion, where it is a matter of relating to what is radically alien (remember how Husserl defines the experience of Fremdheit as “accessibility in genuine inaccessibility in the mode of incomprehensibility” (“Zugänglichkeit in der eigentlichen Unzugänglichkeit im Modus der Unverständlichkeit”) (Hua XV, p. 631). Mystical experiences or pathological conditions establish specific orders of meaning that should not be reduced to an external norm. The intuitions originally offered can both revolutionize the sense established within a given sphere (aesthetic, religious) and open up a new order of sense that has not yet been born. In this regard, the concept of Urstifung in the context of a genetic phenomenology is called upon to assume a fundamental role. The phenomenologist is tasked with describing her experience without prejudice within the limits in which the phenomenon shows itself. It is therefore a phenomenological task to contrast the automatisms, habits, and ideologies that lead us to project onto the phenomenon a meaning extraneous to it. I would now like to highlight three aspects of the principle of all principles that have received little attention in the secondary literature. 1. The first aspect undoubtedly has a paradoxical character. If every originary intuition is to be taken as an absolute beginning, the origin of knowledge does not, strictly speaking, have any principle: it is anarchic. If every originally given intuition is a new beginning, what has been considered valid and true may always be questioned in the light of a new intuition. From a methodological point of view, Husserl certainly aspired to ground and secure knowledge in a rigorous way (through the phenomenological reduction and the eidetic reduction). At the same time, his concrete analyses of different phenomena always remained faithful to what one might ironically call the anarchic primacy of the principle of all

 “Sehen wir doch ein, dass eine jede ihre Wahrheit selbst wieder nur aus den originären Gegebenheiten schöpfen könnte. Jede Aussage, die nichts weiter tut, als solchen Gegebenheiten durch bloße Explikation und genau sich anmessende Bedeutungen Ausdruck zu verleihen, ist also wirklich, wie wir es in den einführenden Worten dieses Kapitels gesagt haben, ein absoluter Anfang im echten Sinne zur Grundlegung berufen principium.” (Hua III/I, p. 51)

11

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principles. This primacy requires an open attitude, devoid of prejudices with respect to the givenness of phenomena. 2. In Husserlian phenomenology there is a vitality linked to the renewal of truth. Truth is made in every instant. It is not difficult to observe the continuity between the idea of absolute beginning exposed in the principle of all principles and the underlying idea of temporality that could be articulated in terms of an originary creation of the primary impression (though Husserl also explored other articulations of inner time-consciousness12). This aspect is particularly evident in the famous Appendix I of the Zeitvorlesungen: “The primary impression is the absolute beginning of this generation, the primary source, that from which everything else is continuously generated. But it itself is not generated: it does not arise as something generated but through genesis spontanea; it is primary generation. It does not develop (it has no germ): it is a primary creation” (Hua X, p. 100, my translation).13 From very different (almost opposing) perspectives, Emmanuel Levinas (1974, p. 42) and Michel Henry (1990, p. 100) also point out that the primary impression must be taken as an originary creation. Levinas regards the above passage in Appendix I as the most remarkable point of Husserlian philosophy. Husserlian phenomenology aims at exhibiting the universality of intentional constitution. Paradoxically, it ends up pointing out that one essential moment of inner time-consciousness itself—the primary impression—does not have the intentional character. As already seen, the very concept of reality, according to Levinas, coincides with the new that surprises us: “The ‘real’ preceding and surprising the possible—would this not be the very definition of the present, which, indifferent in this description (“generation has no germ!”) to the pro-­ tention, is no less conscious of it?” (Levinas 1974, p. 42, my translation).14 3. In Cartesianische Meditationen (Cartesian Meditation), Husserl states that “the beginning is the pure and, so to speak, still silent experience (Erfahrung), which now must be made to utter its own sense with no adulteration” (Husserl 1960, p. 38). Dorion Cairns’ translation overlooks an essential word of Husserl’s sentence which concerns the temporal dimension: “erst.” “Der Anfang ist die reine und sozusagen noch stumme Erfahrung, die nun erst zur reinen Aussprache ihres eigenen Sinnes zu bringen” (Hua I, p. 77). I propose the following translation of this difficult passage: “The beginning is the pure and, so to speak, still silent experience (Erfahrung), which first now must be brought to the expression of its

 See Sect. 9 of this chapter and Chapter 5, Sect. 5.6.  “Die Urimpression ist der absolute Anfang dieser Erzeugung, der Urquell, das, woraus alles andere stetig sich erzeugt. Sie selber aber wird nicht erzeugt, sie entsteht nicht als Erzeugtes, sondern durch genesis spontanea, sie ist Urzeugung. Sie erwächst nicht (sie hat keinen Keim), sie ist Urschöpfung.” (Hua X, p. 10) 14  “Le ‘réel’ précédant et surprenant le possible—ne serait-ce pas la définition même du présent lequel, indifférent dans cette description (‘la génération n’a pas de germe!’) à la pro-tention, n’en serait pas moins conscience?” (Levinas 1974, p. 42), see Chapter 2, Sect. 4.4.

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proper sense.”15 Husserl emphasizes the ever-renewed task of phenomenological analysis to show the phenomenon encountered, now, first. “To show” means precisely to bring to expression the mute and implicit sense of what has affected us, has surprised us. Accordingly, the phenomenologist cannot avoid being a beginner in phenomenology, as Husserl never tired of repeating. It is important to connect the idea of the beginner in phenomenology with the principle of all principles. In the foreword to the Phénoménologie de la perception (“Phenomenology of Perception”), Merleau-Ponty writes: The philosopher, as the unpublished works declare, is a perpetual beginner, which means that he takes for granted nothing that men, learned or otherwise, believe they know. It means also that philosophy itself must not take itself for granted, in so far as it may have managed to say something true; that it is an ever-renewed experiment in making its own beginning; that it consists wholly in the description of this beginning, and finally, that radical reflection amounts to a consciousness of its own dependence on an unreflective life which is its initial situation, unchanging, given once and for all.16 (Merleau-Ponty 2002, p. XV)

If phenomenology holds every originally given intuition as a legitimate source of knowledge, if the task is to bring to expression for the first time mute experience in its proper sense, then the phenomenologist must be prepared always to begin anew, to be a beginner of the “first impression.” It is important, at this point, to introduce a distinction between two different uses of the word phenomenology in a post-Husserlian sense. Once again I quote Merleau Ponty: Even if this were the case, there would still be a need to understand the prestige of the myth and the origin of the fashion, and the opinion of the responsible philosopher must be that phenomenology can be practised and identified as a manner or style of thinking, that it existed as a movement before arriving at complete awareness of itself as a philosophy. It has been long on the way, and its adherents have discovered it in every quarter, certainly in Hegel and Kierkegaard, but equally in Marx, Nietzsche and Freud.17 (Merleau-Ponty 2002, p. VIII)

 “Der Anfang ist die reine und sozusagen noch stumme Erfahrung, die nun erst zur reinen Aussprache ihres eigenen Sinnes zu bringen ist.” (Hua I, p. 77) 16  “Le philosophe, disent encore les inédits, est un commençant perpétuel. Cela veut dire qu’il ne tient rien pour acquis de ce que les hommes ou les savants croient savoir. Cela veut dire aussi que la philosophie ne doit pas elle-même se tenir pour acquise dans ce qu’elle a pu dire de vrai, qu’elle est une expérience renouvelée de son propre commencement, qu’elle consiste tout entière à décrire ce commencement et enfin que la réflexion radicale est conscience de sa propre dépendance à l’égard d’une vie irréfléchie qui est sa situation initiale, constante et finale.” (Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. IX) 17  “Même s’il en était ainsi, il resterait à comprendre le prestige de ce mythe et l’origine de cette mode, et le sérieux philosophique traduira cette situation en disant que la phénoménologie se laisse pratiquer et reconnaître comme manière ou comme style, elle existe comme mouvement, avant d’être parvenue à une entière conscience philosophique. Elle est en route depuis longtemps, ses disciples la retrouvent partout, dans Hegel et dans Kierkegaard bien sûr, mais aussi dans Marx, dans Nietzsche, dans Freud.” (Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. II) 15

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Merleau-Ponty here distinguishes phenomenology as a manner or style from a phenomenology as a philosophical method. How should this distinction be understood? What does phenomenology as manner or style mean? Are the terms “style” and “manner” synonymous? With what legitimacy can the analyses of Freud or Kierkegaard be found significant for phenomenology? And when does phenomenology cease to be a style and become philosophy? Let us start with phenomenology as a style. This expression refers to something difficult to define but easily recognizable. It stands for a meaningful and precise description of lived experience made possible by an open and rigorous attitude. Phenomenological analysis presupposes a certain open gaze that attempts to describe experience as if encountering it for the first time. This gaze, which is a condition for any authentic phenomenological analysis, is a human possibility. Therefore, it is not necessary to refer to the writings of Husserl or Merleau-Ponty to define this specific gaze. A precise description of this gaze is to be found, for example, in Fernando Pessoa’s Livro do Desassossego (The Book of Disquiet): How I would love right now to be able to see all this as if I were somebody who had no other relation with it than that of seeing it—to contemplate everything as an adult traveler who has newly arrived today at the surface of life! To not have learned from birth to attach predetermined meanings to all these things. To be able to see them in their natural self-­ expression, irrespective of the expressions that have been imposed on them. To be able to recognize the fishwife in her human reality, independent of her being called a fishwife and my knowing that she exists and sells fish. To see the policeman as God sees him. To notice everything for the first time, not as apocalyptic revelations of life’s Mystery, but as direct manifestations of Reality.18 (Pessoa 2002, p. 314, trans. modified)

Pessoa manifests the following central aspects of a phenomenological gaze: (1) To assume a theoretical, disinterested attitude to phenomena (“to be able to see all this as if I were somebody who had no other relation with it than that of seeing it”) (ibid.). (2) To describe phenomena as if it were a first encounter. It is necessary to educate oneself in the utopic infancy of an adult gaze. This gaze grasps things in their original givenness (“to view everything as an adult traveler who has newly arrived today at the surface of life! To notice everything for the first time, not as apocalyptic revelations of life’s Mystery, but as direct manifestations of Reality”) (ibid.). Phenomenology attempts to establish the repetition of the first time (Einmaligkeit)—a task that seems to be a contradiction in terms, but which astonishment makes possible. (3) To suspend all one’s prejudices and mental habits (“To not have learned from birth to attach predetermined meanings to all these things. To be able to see them in their natural self-expression, irrespective of the expressions that have been imposed on them.”). (4) To assess phenomena regardless of their very

 “Quem me dera, neste momento o sinto, ser alguém que pudesse ver isto como se não tivesse com ele mais relação que o vê-lo—contemplar tudo como se fora o viajante adulto chegado hoje à superfície da vida! Não ter aprendido, da nascença em diante, a dar sentidos dados a estas coisas todas, poder vê-las na expressão que têm separadamente da expressão que lhes foi imposta. Poder conhecer na varina a sua realidade humana independentemente de se lhe chamar varina, e de saber que existe e que vende. Ver o polícia como Deus o vê. Reparar em tudo pela primeira vez, não apocalipticamente, como revelações do Mistério, mas diretamente como florações da Realidade.” (Pessoa 2003, p. 124)

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existence (“To be able to recognize the fishwife in her human reality, independent of her being called a fishwife and my knowing that she exists and sells fish.”). Phenomenology as a philosophical method presupposes a critical confrontation with the three procedures that characterize Husserlian phenomenology: (1) transcendental epochè that allows us to suspend our natural faith in an existence of the world independently of subjective experience; (2) the eidetic reduction that aims at defining the invariant moments of phenomena; (3) the analysis of the correlation between noesis and noema. In contemporary thought, there has been an insistence on the gaps and delays that characterize certain experiences (such as trauma) that are therefore not attributable to the synchrony between objects and intentional acts. At the same time, even in these analyses, the correlation between noesis and noema serves as a starting point. The concept of intentionality therefore remains central. It is precisely for these reasons that the affect of anxiety represents a particularly important challenge for phenomenology. If anxiety is traditionally characterized by the absence of a reference to an object and if phenomenology is based on the notion of intentional consciousness, how will it ever be possible to carry out a phenomenology of anxiety? Phenomenology as a scientific method is always based on the free exercise of a renewed and open gaze (as stated in the principle of all principles). A renewed gaze attempts to avoid easy and convenient dichotomies, such as that of object/non-­ object, and attempts to faithfully describe the particular structure that experience assumes each time.

3  Anxiety-Preparedness and Anxiety Development As seen in the Chapter  1 (Sect. 1), Pierre Le Loyer, the council’s adviser of the presidential court in Angers, intended to provide an argument to solve the dispute regarding the payment of rent for an allegedly haunted house. His argument is so intricate that it helped us raise the following question: when does anxiety no longer perform the function of signalling an imminent danger and become, instead, a projection of our ghosts (see Chapter 1, Sect. 1)? Most likely, it is not possible to establish a clear-cut distinction between these two aspects. An investigation of Freud’s account of anxiety, and more specifically a close reading of lecture XXV of Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse (A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis), seems to confirm this discouraging conclusion. Freud distinguishes a “realistic” anxiety from a “neurotic” (and therefore pathological) anxiety. Neurotic anxiety can take different forms: (1) it is “condensed” into certain objects (phobias), (2) it expresses itself in a general nervousness in which the worst is constantly feared or (3) it manifests itself in violent affects with strong physiological reactions (today we would use the term ‘panic attacks’). Realistic anxiety (Realangst) is triggered by external threats. It is essentially defined by the combination of two moments: anxiety-preparedness (Angstvorbereitung) and

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anxiety development (Angstentwicklung)19 (Freud 1998/1920, §25). One can illustrate realistic anxiety as an ellipse with two foci: • With the term anxiety-preparedness (Angstvorbereitung), Freud refers to the “activation” of organism’s defenses against impending threats—hence its increased attention and reactivity—so it becomes more able to deal with the danger in a successful way. The specific expedient behavior (such as running away or counterattacking) evidently depends on the given circumstances. • Freud uses the expression “anxiety development” (Angstentwicklung) to indicate an excess of dysfunctional affect which tends to destabilize and immobilize the subject. Accordingly, even in non-neurotic anxiety, there is an inexpedient moment that make us feel powerless. If one could only feel anxiety-preparedness, there would be no anxiety: a “pure” balanced response to impending threats is not compatible with this affect. Likewise, if one could only experience anxiety development, there would be no anxiety. Instead, a pathological disorder in the form of panic attack or anxiety neurosis would occur.20 To summarize: Freud’s account of anxiety is very complex. Realistic anxiety (Realangst) is itself composed of an expedient moment and a dysfunctional moment. If, for different reasons (such as traumatic events or an excess of desire) the dysfunctional moment becomes dominant, neurotic anxiety sets in. In pathological cases, the subject’s responsiveness, including its scope of initiative, is limited to a remarkable extent. It is noteworthy that a differentiation of the affect in terms of two opposing orientations similar to Freud’s account is to be found in one of the authors who has had the greatest impact on political philosophy: Thomas Hobbes. In Arbeit am Mythos (“Work on Myth”), Blumenberg affirms the continuity between myth and philosophy. Myth represents a first rational elaboration of a chaotic and overwhelming world which confuses us. Philosophy continues the work of myth by introducing new and specific forms of rationality (Blumenberg 1979/1985). The beginning of Hobbes’ De Cive may be taken as an example of this continuity between myth and philosophy. Ares, the God of war, was father, among others, of two children: Phobos (Φόβος), fear and, Deimos (Δεῖμος), terror. Hobbes deepens this intuition of Greek mythology in philosophical form. Two different affects develop out of the state of nature, i.e. from the war of all against all: terror and fear. In the famous footnote 2 of the first chapter of the De Cive, Hobbes replies to a strong objection against his theory, namely, that it is not legitimate to take fear as the foundation of commonwealth. When one is afraid, one tends to avoid others: one is not even able to look one’s fellows in the eyes. Fear dissolves social bonds. Accordingly, it does not sound plausible to identify the origin of social bonds in fear. Hobbes believes this  Anxiety development means anxiety intensification. The term “realistic anxiety” (Realangst) is equivocal, because it can be misunderstood as suggesting the unreality of neurotic anxiety, which is obviously not in line with Freud’s account. 20  According to the current nosology, in the latter case one would speak of generalized anxiety. 19

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objection to be misleading, since it does not do justice to the fundamental difference between terror and fear. Terror destabilizes us in such a way that we lose control and leads us to act irrationally. If the condition of the state of nature would awaken only terror in us, we would in fact be unable to reach the rational decision to delegate our autonomy to a third instance in order to safeguard our safety and survival, that is to say, the civil society would not arise. However, not only terror but also fear occurs in the civil society of nature and the latter plays an important role: through fear we calculate both the effects of our actions and those of others, and so we are able to make reasonable choices. [Mutual fear] It is objected: It is so improbable that men should grow into civill Societies out of fear, that if they had been afraid, they would not have endur’d each others looks: They presume, I believe, that to fear is nothing else then to be affrighted: I comprehend in this word Fear, a certain foresight of future evill; neither doe I conceive flight the sole property of fear, but to distrust, suspect, take heed, provide so that they may not fear, is also incident to the fearfull. They who go to Sleep, shut their Dores; they who Travell carry their Swords with them, because they fear Theives. Kingdomes guard their Coasts and Frontiers with Forts, and Castles; Cities are compast with Walls, and all for fear of neighbouring Kingdomes and Townes; even the strongest Armies, and most accomplisht for Fight, yet sometimes Party for peace, as fearing each others power, and lest they might be overcome. It is through fear that men secure themselves, by flight indeed, and in corners, if they think they cannot escape otherwise, but for the most part by Armes, and Defensive Weapons; whence it happens, that daring to come forth, they know each others Spirits; but then, if they fight, Civill Society ariseth from the Victory, if they agree, from their Agreement. (Hobbes 1987, p. 45)

Fear as a certain foresight of future evil gives us good advice, it makes us cautious. The foundation of the civil society is based on this prudence. Carl Schmitt describes the process that gives rise to the social pact as follows: “The terror of the state of nature drives anguished individuals together; their fear rises to an extreme; a spark of reason flashes; and suddenly there stands in front of us a new god”21 (Schmitt 1996, p.  48). Schmitt’s description is misleading, since for Hobbes the crux is that fear does not soar. If it would escalate, terror would be triggered and the mortal God, the state, would not see the light of day. The spark of ratio is connected with the moderating and moderate nature of fear. Hobbes’s position is clearly analogous with the Freudian account of anxiety (Angst), since it is also based on a distinction between a reasonable and functional moment and a blind and irrational one. Nevertheless, a striking difference between the two positions cannot be overlooked. In the Freudian theory the two moments are inherent in the same phenomenon—anxiety (Angst)—as such. Hobbes, on the other hand, introduces a differentiation between two affects: fear, which responds more

 “Der Schrecken des Naturzustandes treibt die angsterfüllten Individuen zusammen; ihre Angst steigert sich aufs äußerste, ein Lichtfunke der ratio blitzt auf—und plötzlich steht vor uns der neue Gott” (Schmitt 1938, p. 48). In his critical discussion of Carl Schmitt’s interpretation, Esposito highlights that Hobbes’s state is grounded on the very dissolution of community ties (Esposito 1998, p. 12).

21

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to reason and terror, which is irrational. Yet, one should bear in mind that Hobbes’s differentiation that fear itself should not be reduced to the expedient and rational function. In order to fully understand the meaning of fear in Hobbes’ philosophy as whole, it would be needed to consider his later works: not only Leviathan but also De Corpore and De homine. In De corpore, Hobbes addresses fear from a physiological perspective. This approach is highly significant for our purposes. To dream the physical sensations of cold provokes fear: it induces the vision of ghosts. “Lastly, cold doth in the same manner generate fear in those that sleep, and causeth them to dream of ghosts, and to have phantasms of horror and danger; as fear also causeth cold in those that wake.” (Hobbes 1839, p. 401). An irrational aspect must not be attributed only to terror but is also inherent in fear. In fact, fear itself is an ambiguous phenomenon. On the one hand, it is connected to the feeling of cold and makes us see ghosts. It is an immediate aversive response to external factors and may be inexpedient. On the other hand, “it is through fear that men secure themselves” (Hobbes). Fear is not only a paralyzing passion, but it is even more an “enhancing” passion (Sorgi 1996, p. 171): it is capable of turning into rational calculation. Reason has its origin in fear. Interestingly, Remo Bodei uses the Freudian expression of sublimation to define the ambiguous nature of Hobbes’s notion of fear: “Primitive fear, which is shared with the other animals, in man sublimates itself in rational fear, and it constitutes the prime source of every calculation of reciprocity—that is of ratio as such (…)” (Bodei 2018, p. 63).

4  A Tentative Digression on Ghosts and on Urdoxa I have previously addressed the relation between ghost and terror through Henry James’s disturbing story The Turn of the Screw (see Chapter 2, Sect. 2), and I have just referred to the ghost in order to highlight a specifically irrational moment in Hobbes’s account of fear. Here, it is crucial to avoid any undue generalization (and trivialization) of the concept of the ghost: the notion of the ghost need not necessarily be associated with the experience of terror or that of madness. In fact, the relation to ghosts varies considerably in different cultures. It inevitably involves specific metaphysical presuppositions that have major consequences of economic, theological, and political nature. It is therefore not possible to make general statements in this regard. Especially within the Christian tradition, the appearance of the ghost is often a sign of the presence of an anomaly: its appearance is a signal of an imbalance between our world and the other “world” (Delumeau 1978). Among the innumerable examples which go in this direction, I point out one which seems particularly suggestive to me: in his Christiana de indulcentiis assertio, Anselmo Botturnio resorts to the unwanted presence of ghosts to underline the value of indulgences. Anselmo Botturnio’s book is the first work written by an Italian

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author—significantly, if not ironically, an Augustinian—against the movement initiated by Martin Luther22: Luther’s statements regarding the pope’s authority and the value of indulgences are refuted by Botturnio with arguments drawn from the patristic and theological tradition of the Augustinian Order of which the most illustrious figures are exalted (…). Dealing with the souls of the deceased who are in purgatory and for whom no one among the living cares to gain indulgences, Botturnio, wanting to show the ways in which divine providence works in their favor, recalls an episode of which he had been a witness: in 1520 the priest Bernardino Zachirolo from Imola, commissioner of the Hospital of S. Spirito in Rome, had the indulgences published in the church of S.  Lorenzo in Vicenza and Botturnio had preached in S. Michele for the Advent urging the people to buy them. Among those who accepted the call there was a certain Girolamo Franchi who, together with his wife Caterina, gained the plenary indulgence. Some time later, according to Botturnio, Franchi’s house began to be disturbed by strange and unusual noises; it was thought that these noises were connected to the souls of Franchi’s mother-in-law and his daughter, who wanted in this way to attract their relatives’s attention and ask that indulgences be granted to them too; once the “omission” was remedied, the noises in fact disappeared completely.23 (AA.VV. 1971, p. 562)

The inexplicable noises inside Franchi’s house are traced back to the omission of a specific act understood within the soteriological (and economic-political) apparatus of indulgences. The presence of a ghost is symptomatic of an alteration of the relation between the living and the dead: Franchi’s relatives protest since they had been excluded from receiving this essential form of “help” from him. The anomaly, thus, is used to validate both the social bond between the living and the dead and the dominant epistemological paradigm of the world: “once the omission was repaired, in fact, the noises disappeared completely.” This example shows that an anomaly (such as the appearance of a ghost) often does not challenge the dominant paradigm, but rather makes it visible by validating it. The concept of the ghost is philosophically interesting because it marks the border between the world (as we know it) and what is alien to it, between life and death, between reason and imagination, between dream and madness. In the appearance of a ghost, the relations between “nature” and “culture” are crystallized and become apparent. In our contemporary western world, the predominant idea of a ghost presupposes the “natural attitude.” This attitude implies the existence of an objective and autonomous world that is self-regulated and shows an internal coherence. If, as we already  In his book Tribunali della coscienza (“Tribunals of Conscience”), Adriano Prosperi shows how the undisputed primacy of faith was profoundly problematic in Italy in the sixteenth century: religion was in fact oriented towards the value of charity that inspired the action of the various religious movements. “But the Saint Paul most common circulating in Italy, before and after the Lutheran Reformation, was not so much that of the Epistle to the Romans but that of the First Epistle to the Corinthians: and it was on the basis of that Pauline authority that the clear superiority of charity over faith could be argued.” (Prosperi 1996, pp. 21–22) On the immense problem of the Protestant Reformation in Italy, see Massimo Firpo’s work Riforma protestante ed eresie nell’Italia del Cinquecento (“Protestant Reform and Heresies in Italy in the Sixteenth Century”) (Firpo 2008). Delio Cantimori’s book Eretici Italiani del Cinquecento (“Italian Heretics of the Sixteenth Century”) remains an essential reference within this area of study (Cantimori 2002). 23  Adriano Prosperi is the author of the note on Anselmo Botturnio in Dizionario biografico degli italiani. 22

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said, our relation to those apparitions called “ghosts” is strongly conditioned by culturally-bounded symbolic activities and social practices, the question arises whether (and to what extent) it is appropriate to generalize such an attitude that implies the very specifically modern concept of “nature.” From these premises, we may draw a conclusion highly relevant to the phenomenological method. The present considerations on the close link between spectral “presences” and the epistemic paradigms at work in different cultural contexts represent a challenge for the concept of urdoxa in Husserlian phenomenology. Research in the field of cultural anthropology questions the universality of the natural attitude, which is one of the fundamental presuppositions of Husserl’s transcendental philosophy. The phenomenological epoché assumes that the subject initially lives in the natural attitude: one believes that the world really exists as it is, independent of subjective experience. As what confronts me, I continually find the spatiotemporal reality to which I belong like all other human beings who are to be found in it and who are related to it as I am. I find the “reality,” the word already says it, as a factually existent actuality and also accept it as it presents itself to me as factually existing. No doubt about or rejection of data belonging to the natural world alters in any respect the general positing which characterizes the natural attitude. “The” world is always there as a reality; here and there, it is at most “otherwise” than I supposed; this or that is, so to speak, to be struck out of it and given such titles as “illusion” and “hallucination,” and the like; which— according to the general positing—is always factually existent.24 (Husserl 1982, p.  57, trans. modified)

In other words, we are born transcendentally blind: we do not notice nor can we immediately notice to what extent subjectivity contributes to letting the world appear in the way that it appears to us. We live in the naive and “natural” certainty that the world exists as we perceive it, regardless of our experience. We are spontaneously blind to the involvement of subjectivity in our perception of objects (from sensory appearances to elementary forms of passive syntheses such as the inner time-consciousness). Exactly at this point, the question about the legitimacy of such a universalization of the natural attitude, including the concept of nature presupposed in it, “naturally” arises. A discussion of Viveiros de Castro’s notions of perspectivism and multinaturalism may shed light on this issue. In Cannibal Metaphysics, Viveiros De Castro introduces the notion of perspectivism by recounting the well-known encounter between the Spaniards and the “indigenous” as it occurred in the Greater Antilles (Viveiros de Castro 2014). Lévi-Strauss commented on this extraordinary encounter several times:  “Ich finde beständig vorhanden als mein Gegenüber die eine räumlich-zeitliche Wirklichkeit, der ich selbst zugehöre, wie alle anderen in ihr vorfindlichen und auf sie in gleicher Weise bezogenen Menschen. Die ‘Wirklichkeit’, das sagt schon das Wort, finde ich als daseiende vor und nehme sie, wie sie sich mir gibt, auch als daseiende hin. Alle Bezweiflung und Verwerfung von Gegebenheiten der natürlichen Welt ändert nichts an der Generalthesis der natürlichen Einstellung. ‚Die‘Welt ist als Wirklichkeit immer da, sie ist höchstens hier oder dort ‚anders‘als ich vermeinte, das oder jenes ist aus ihr unter den Titeln ‚Schein‘, ‚Halluzination‘u. dgl. Sozusagen herauszustreichen, aus ihr, die—im Sinne der Generalthesis—immer daseiende Welt ist.” (Hua III/1, pp. 52–53)

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In the Greater Antilles, some years after the discovery of America, while the Spaniards sent out investigating commissions to ascertain whether or not the natives had a soul, the latter were engaged in the drowning of white prisoners in order to verify, through prolonged watching, whether or not their corpses were subject to putrefaction.25 (Lévi-Strauss 1978, p. 329)

The Spaniards’ inquiry revolves around the question of whether “natives” had souls. The Indian’s anthropological research poses exactly the opposite question: are the Spaniards endowed with a body? Lévi-Strauss uses this episode to underline the unfortunately diffuse anthropological feature of not recognizing humanity in the other human.26 Ironically, one could say that the negation of the anthropological status of the other human being is a very common anthropological tendency. The reversed order between the two questions that mirror each other vividly shows that differences in underlying epistemological and metaphysical presuppositions—here concerning the relation between culture and nature—vary considerably in the two different cultures. Indigenous people assume that Europeans have a soul but may not have a body. On the contrary, Europeans assume that indigenous people have bodies but may not have souls. The cosmic and ontological presuppositions involved in the two inquiries are simply incommensurable. According to Viveiros de Castro, nature, understood as a material dimension, is the ontological background considered obvious by the Europeans, while for the “indigenous” Amerindians it is obvious that everything has a soul.27 In the last case there is a proliferation of souls, of

 “Dans les grandes Antilles, quelques années après la découverte de l’Amérique, pendant que les Espagnols envoyaient des commissions d’enquête pour rechercher si les indigènes avaient ou non une âme, ces derniers s’employaient a immerger les blancs prisonniers afin de vérifier, par une surveillance prolongée, si leur cadavre était ou non sujet a la putréfaction.” (Lévi-Strauss 1987, p. 21) 26  In this respect there would be a convergence between the attitude of the natives towards Europeans and the approach of Europeans towards the natives. In Tristes Tropiques, Lévi-Strauss returns to this anecdote by pointing out how the natives and Europeans arrive at two opposite conclusions, both of which go beyond humanity: while for Europeans the natives are animals (without souls), for the latter the whites are most likely gods. This perspective honors the natives: “Both attitudes show equal ignorance, but the Indians’ behaviour certainly had greater human dignity” (Lévi-Strauss 1992, p. 80). 27  Following the Borgesian example, Viveiros de Castro introduces his work as a commentary on a book he would have liked to write: the Anti-Narcissus. Through this proleptic vertigo, Viveiros de Castro succeeds, at least partially, in writing his own text and addressing methodological issues of the utmost importance. The Borgesian choice to comment on a book that has not yet been written probably has its origin in the inhibitions that arise spontaneously when facing such a difficult task: how to deal adequately with the nature of anthropology? The commentary on a book that has not yet been written is liberating because it opens a space of possibility where all the shortcomings of the current treatment are already compensated for or, more precisely, redeemed. The Borgesian strategy encourages exposure, since it has already partially obtained “salvation” from its own imperfections (the imaginary book has already been written). The other becomes a pretext for deconstructing oneself: The very culture of ethnocentric suspicion is essentially narcissistic. In other words, the denunciation of anthropology that theoretically aims at decolonization repeats a colonizing process in a new, secret and perverse way at the theoretical level. The encounter with the other cannot be limited to adding a new object to those already known, but must radically 25

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different agents that interact with each other: gods, animals, plants, the dead, objects of various kinds. In a schematic way, we can see a reverse play of mirrors between the production of souls and the production of bodies. Among Amerindians, all souls are capable of perceiving themselves as “persons”28: each being is a “center of intentionality” capable of learning everything else from a particular point of view and according to specific appetitive and cognitive modes. From a theoretical point of view, everything can have a soul and it is not relevant to classify in a systematic way what is excluded. Everything is virtually a person i.e., an aspect of a “biosocial multiplicity” (Viveiros de Castro 2014, p. 58), although then the personhood primarily concerns specific predators (such as the jaguar, the anaconda) (Viveiros de Castro 2014, pp. 55–63). Amerindian perspectivism is in fact defined in a predatory sense. Different beings are anthropologized in terms of predatory apperception. The prey itself is perceived from a human perspective involving cultural achievements: “Jaguars see blood as corn beer, vultures see maggots of putrefying meat as grilled fish, etc.” (Viveiros de Castro 2014, p. 57). While western multiculturalism assumes the identity of physical nature in the variety of cultures and social symbolic forms, the Amerindian conception reverses the relation: there is a plurality of bodies in the unity of spirit—hence the notion of multinaturalism. In his famous letter to Lévy-Bruhl, Husserl explicitly deals with the significance of ethnological research.29 There, Husserl recognizes the valuable contribution of ethnological investigation to analyzing the specific correlations between the experience of the world and social communities. Ethnological research detects and analyzes the structure of the world in the context of the culturally different communities. It studies the person as member of a specific social group. One of the major merits of Levy-Bruhl’s inquiry precisely resides in making the experience of an alien world really accessible to us:

modify the very anthropological practice and methodology, the very subjectivity of the anthropologist, their very gaze, opening unexpected and radically new horizons. Such a perspective avoids both the mystical thesis of a radical and unknowable alterity and the idea of a universal reason in which all differences are “tamed” and flattened. It is therefore necessary to avoid normalizing otherness, reducing it to something different or lacking with respect to what is assumed as the norm. On the contrary, it is necessary to intercept a beginning of another world in extraneousness. It would not be inaccurate to say that Viveiros de Castro’s analyses attempt to implement a process of transpassibility of anthropology (on the concept of transpassibility I refer to Maldiney 1991 and to Richir 1992—I will return to this concept in Chapter 5, Sect. 1.3). At the same time, it is not possible here to conceal the fact that the characterization of Western metaphysics as unilaterally oriented towards nature is excessively schematic and approximate in Viveiros de Castro’s exposition. 28  “This interspecific resemblance includes, to put it a bit performatively, the same mode of apperception: animals and other nonhumans having a soul ‘see themselves as persons’ and therefore ‘are persons’: intentional, double-sided (visible and invisible) objects constituted by social relations and existing under a double, at once reflexive and reciprocal–which is to say collective–pronominal mode.” (Viveiros de Castro 2014, p. 56) 29  Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Derrida and Enzo Paci had critically discussed Husserl’s letter to Lévy-Bruhl (see Moran and Steinacher 2011).

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Naturally, we have long known that every human being has a “world-representation,” that every nation, every supranational [übernationale] cultural grouping lives, so to speak, in a distinct world as its own environing world [in einer anderen Welt als Seiner Umwelt lebt], and so again every historical time in its . Yet, in contrast to this empty generalization, your work and your exceptional theme has made us sensitive to something overwhelmingly new: namely, that it is a possible and highly important and great task to “empathize” with a humanity living self-contained in living generative sociality [lebendiger generativer Sozialität] and to understand this humanity as having, in and through its socially unified life, the world, which for it is not a “world-representation” but rather the world that actually exists for it [die für sie wirklich seiende Welt]. Thereby we learn to understand its ways of apperceiving, identifying, thinking, thus its logic and its ontology, that of its environing world with the respective categories.30 (Husserl in: Hopkins and Drummond 2008, pp. 350-351)

Ethnological research does not only address the primitive world, but it also offers a valuable contribution to understanding the historicity of other cultures.31 The history of a historical community can then be examined both on national and supernational “scale.” Although Husserl attributes high value to ethnological investigation, this approach represents a first step to addressing the problem of the correlation between subjectivity and world. Like all other sciences, it remains naive in so far as it is transcendentally blind: Positive science is consistently [konsequent] objective science; it is science within the taken-for-grantedness [Selbstverständlichkeit] of the being of the objective world and of human being as real factual existence [realen Dasein] in the world. Transcendental phenomenology is the radical and consistent science of subjectivity, which ultimately constitutes the world in itself. In other words, it is the science that reveals the universal taken-for-grantedness “world and we human beings in the world” to be an obscurity [Unverständlichkeit], thus an enigma, a problem, and that makes it scientifically intelligible [verständlich] in the solely possible way of radical self-examination.32 (Husserl in: Hopkins and Drummond 2008, p. 353)

 “Natürlich wussten wir das schon längst, dass jeder Mensch seine ‚Weltvorstellung‘hat, dass jede Nation, dass jeder übernationale Kulturkreis sozusagen in einer anderen Welt als seiner Umwelt lebt, und so wiederum jede geschichtliche Zeit in der ihren. Aber gegenüber dieser leeren Allgemeinheit hat Ihr Werk und Ihr ausgezeichnetes Thema ein überwältigend Neues uns empfindlich gemacht: nämlich dass es eine mögliche und höchst wichtige und große Aufgabe ist, uns in eine in lebendiger generativer Sozialität abgeschlossen lebende Menschheit ‚einzufühlen‘und sie zu verstehen als in ihrem sozial vereinheitlichten Leben und aus ihm die Welt habend, die für sie nicht, ‚Weltvorstellung‘, sondern die für sie wirklich seiende Welt ist. Dabei lernen wir verstehen ihre Arten zu apperzipieren, zu identifizieren, zu denken, also ihre Logik sowie ihre Ontologie, die ihrer Umwelt mit den zugehörigen Kategorien.” (Husserliana Dok. III/7, p. 162, 1994) 31  A criticism of the distinction between primitive culture without history and other cultures with historicity necessarily involves a critical discussion of Levy-Bruhl’s methodology which goes beyond the scope of the present research. 32   “Positive Wissenschaft ist konsequent objektive Wissenschaft, ist Wissenschaft in der Selbstverständlichkeit des Seins der objektiven Welt und des menschlichen Seins als realen Daseins in der Welt. Die transzendentale Phänomenologie ist radikale und konsequente Wissenschaft von der Subjektivität, der letztlich Welt in sich konstituierenden. M.a.W. sie ist die Wissenschaft, die die universale Selbstverständlichkeit ‚weit und wir Menschen in der Welt‘als Unverständlichkeit, somit als Rätsel, als Problem enthüllt und in der einzig möglichen Weise radikaler Selbstbesinnung wissenschaftlich verständlich macht.” (Husserliana Dok. III/7, ­ pp. 163–164, 1994) 30

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It is significant that Husserl emphasizes the centrality of the transcendental ego in this regard: only through the transcendental epoché it is possible to address the problem of the world in a scientifically appropriate way.33 In my view, it is important to highlight the tension between the universalist claim of phenomenology as a transcendental philosophy, that necessarily implies the suspension of the natural attitude, and the structural alteration of the relations between culture and nature in different life worlds. If we give credit to the accuracy of the account of Viveiros de Castro,34 who, like a shaman, wants to make two incommensurable worlds communicate, certain questions will become unavoidable: how should we evaluate a transcendental epoché that assumes the universality of the natural attitude? Is it still legitimate to assume a natural attitude understood as an urdoxa that is “common” in a transcultural sense? To what extent does Husserl’s notion of urdoxa presuppose a very specific concept of nature as the objective, coherent and autonomous world which is a particular result of our modern western history?35 Should we, then, give up the very concept of urdoxa? Or, alternatively, should we keep the idea of an unconditional certainty with respect to the handed down “life world” while abandoning the concept of the natural attitude that presupposes the independence of a real and material world? In the latter case, the suspension in the epoché would no longer focus on the natural attitude but will instead concentrate on common sense: it would open the possibility of problematizing the specific common sense hegemonic in each of a plurality of life-worlds.36

 “Für mich im gegenwärtigen Stande meiner unaufhörlich fortgeführten Lebensarbeit hat diese Perspektive das grösste Interesse darum, weil ich das Korrelationsproblem Wir und Umwelt als ‘transzendental-Phänomenologisches’ im Hinblick auf die möglichen mannigfaltigen ‘wir’ schon vor vielen Jahren mir gestellt habe, und zwar letztlich zurückbezogen auf das Problem des absoluten Ego.*” (Husserliana Dokumente III, 163) The asteristik refers to the following passage: “nämlich das Ich, das ich, der Philosophierende, durch Rückfrage nach dem Vollzugssubjekt in der Methode der phänomenologischen Reduktion aller meiner Welt- und Selbstapp als mein letztes Ich finde.” (Husserliana Dok. III/7, p. 164; 1994) 34  This “if” should not be taken for granted. Here I find it important to underline two different criticisms against Viveiros de Castro’s account: Carlo Severi highlights the problematic use of the concept of “species” in Viveiros de Castro’s perspectivist paradigm in his valuable contribution Transmutating Beings that aims at rethinking Jakobson’s notion of “transmutation” in an anthropological context (Severi 2014). More recently, Camille Chamois critically discussed Pierre Déléage’s objections against Viveiros de Castro’s approach in her paper Avatars du perspectivisme. Pierre Déléage lecteur de Viveiros de Castro (Chamois 2021). 35  A related problem concerns the question: to what extent does Husserl’s notion of urdoxa presuppose the modern idea of a self-affirmation of the human being in Blumenberg’s sense? 36  If the latter path is followed, how could phenomenology be transcendental in Husserl’s sense? Or, would phenomenology become quasi-transcendental in line with Foucault’s notion of historic apriori? These problems are the object of the contemporary debate in the context of the critical phenomenology (Guenther 2019) and also in post-colonial studies (especially those inspired by Fanon). Concerning the contemporary debates, it is essential to carefully introduce distinction both between (1) the different meanings and forms of transcendental epoché and reduction and the different meanings of life-world, in order to avoid conflagrating heterogenous concepts too quickly. In his book Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt, Alfred Schütz already critically discusses the relation between the natural attitude and different phenomena of ordinary social life from a methodological perspective, while remaining loyal to Husserl’s project of transcendental philosophy (Schütz 1932). 33

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5  Painful Expectation of the Negative With his usual elegance, in Chapter XIII of the Third Book of the Essays, Montaigne deals with the risks associated with “listening” to his body during illness. Every little bodily alteration can easily be prolonged by the imagination guided by the idea that the worst is coming (this negative attitude is most often confirmed and exacerbated by medical practice, the object of fierce sarcasm here): “Now if I feel something stirring, do not fancy that I trouble myself to consult my pulse or my urine, thereby to put myself upon some annoying prevention; I shall soon enough feel the pain, without making it more and longer by the disease of fear. The one who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears” (Montaigne 1877 III, p. 419).37 When sick, it is not wise to turn one’s own attention to the “disease of fear” (le mal de la peur). In this “disease” there occurs a game of shifting mirrors between fear and suffering, since these two moments refer to different temporal axes: who is now anxious that he is going to suffer in the near future is already experiencing suffering. The present suffering is generated by the anticipation of a future situation, or more precisely, by current anxiety before the anticipated future situation. Seneca’s voice seems to echo in Montaigne’s text. In fact, Seneca identifies in fear the same structure pointed out by Montaigne. In his 74th Letter to Lucilius, Seneca contends that the wise person must keep her balance even in the most difficult situation. She must not be discouraged by the greatest losses: the soul must not let itself be overcome by pain, grief, or regret, so losing her serenity and lucidity. The specific challenges related to fear (timor/metus) are at stake here: But if folly fears some evil, she is burdened by it in the very moment of awaiting it, just as if it had actually come,—already suffering in apprehension whatever she fears she may suffer. Just as in the body symptoms of latent ill-health precede the disease—there is, for example, a certain weak sluggishness, a lassitude which is not the result of any work, a trembling, and a shivering that pervades the limbs,—so the feeble spirit is shaken by its ills a long time before it is overcome by them. It anticipates them, and totters before its time. But what is greater madness than to be tortured by the future and not to save your strength for the actual suffering, but to invite and bring on wretchedness? If you cannot be rid of it, you ought at least to postpone it. Will you not understand that no man should be tormented by the future?38 (Seneca 1996, p. 459, my emphasis).

 “Or sens-je quelque chose qui croule; ne vous attendez pas que j’aille m’amusant à reconnaître mon pouls et mes urines, pour y prendre quelque prévoyance ennuyeuse. Je serai assez à temps à sentir le mal, sans l’allonger par le mal de la peur. Qui craint de souffrir, il souffre déjà de ce qu’il craint.” (Montaigne 1967, p. 440, my italics) 38  “Si vero aliquod timetur malum, eo proinde, dum expectat, quasi venisset, urgetur et quicquid ne patiatur timet, iam metu patitur. Quemadmodum in corporibus insidentis languoris signa praecurrunt, quaedam enim segnitia enervis est et sine labore ullo lassitudo et oscitatio et horror membra percurrens; sic infirmus animus multo ante quam opprimatur malis quatitur. Praesumit illa et ante tempus cadit. Quid autem dementius quam angi futuris nec se tormento reservare, sed arcessere sibi miserias et admovere? Quas optimum est differre, si discutere non possit. Vis scire futuro neminem debere torqueri?” (Seneca 1996, 458). 37

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Montaigne’s and Seneca’s analyses warn against getting lost in imagining future torments. Furthermore, they detect the circular relation between fear (crainte— metus), pain, and anticipation. Taking into account the problem of circularity, it is interesting to compare Seneca’s definition of metus and Montaigne’s analysis of crainte with Aristotle’s understanding of phobos. Also, in the latter case, we find a configuration of fear/ anxiety in which pain opens and closes the scene. Furthermore, in Aristotle’s text the pain related to the affect of phobos is also mediated by imagination (Aristotle 1984, p. 79): ἔστω δὴ ὁ φόβος λύπη τις ἢ ταραχὴ ἐκ φαντασίας μέλλοντος κακοῦ φθαρτικοῦ ἢ λυπηροῦ (Aristotele Rhetorica, 1382a 21-23) Let fear be defined, a pain or disturbance arising from a mental (presentation or) impression (phantasia) (a vivid presentiment) of coming evil, destructive or painful. (Aristotle 2009, p. 59)

A quick review of the translations of this passage in French, Italian, Spanish and German underscores the difficulty of rendering the term phantasia, which is one of the most difficult, ambiguous, and controversial concepts of the Aristotelian corpus. Phantasia is a representation of what is absent, a remnant of past impressions: La crainte sera donc une peine, ou un trouble cause par l’idée d’un mal à venir, ou désastreux, ou affligeant. (Aristote 1991, p. 203) Furcht sei definiert al seine gewisse Art von Kummer und Beunruhigung auf Grund der Vorstellung eines Bevorstehenden verderblichen oder schmerzhaften Übels. (Aristotle 1999, p. 20) Sea el temor un sufrimiento o turbación nacido de imaginar un mal venidero que puede provocar destrucción o sufrimiento. (Aristotle 2002, 156). Definiamo che il timore è un dolore o un turbamento proveniente dalla immaginazione di un male che può giungere, portante distruzione o dolore. (Aristotle 1984, p. 79)

The different translations of Aristotle’s passage are “disturbed” by the “ghost” of the word “phantasia”: how should phantasia be translated? There is no lack of candidates: representation (Vorstellung), imagination (immaginazione), presentiment, vivid impression, idea (idée) … It is also critical to highlight the circularity present in the Aristotelian definition of phobos: phobos is the actual pain which is provoked by the idea/imagination of an imminent evil—of something that will bring destruction or pain. Also here, pain opens and closes the scene. Phobos is actual pain due to the anticipation of imminent future pain. The mere possibility—motivated by current circumstances—of future pain generates actual pain. A proleptical structure is clearly visible: the future evil is hurting me now. Already in Aristotle, understanding phobos presupposes a thorough interpretation of the notion of phantasia. The problem lies precisely in the clarification of the notion of phantasia as representation, as imagination and as anticipation of the future.39 39  The study of the concept of phantasia in Aristotle goes beyond the scope of the present research (see Caston 1996; Dow 2010; White 1985).

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Finally, I would like to underline an aspect that could be assigned to the complex area of “temporal ethics” (that was inaugurated by Kierkegaard). My tentative historical survey of some key texts of our philosophical tradition (Aristotle/Seneca/ Montaigne) has highlighted the presence of a complex temporal articulation between anticipation/imagination, pain, and fear/anxiety (phobos/metus/crainte). This temporal structure starts from an assumption that should not be considered obvious, although it usually remains unnoticed. This assumption concerns the order of relevance: the future situation is assumed to be more significant and critical than the present one. Otherwise the very raison d’être of anxiety would be unjustified, that is, it would not be legitimate to consent to that future situation’s obscuring and occupation of the present. In every anxiety there is an occupation, bordering on a violation, of the present by the future. This is also how we may understand the word “pre-occupation.” The word “pre-occupation” entails a form of occupation by one temporal dimension (the future) of another (the present)—an occupation that should be understood in almost belligerent terms. In most of our anxieties we see the ghosts of the future usurping the present. In other words, every time there is anxiety about a future circumstance, it is presupposed (at least implicitly) that the future scene has more raison d’être than the present moment. Why do we follow our pre-­occupations? Why do we give credit to their implicit assumptions? Phenomenology can make a contribution of the greatest importance to these questions. But how is it possible to describe anxiety from a phenomenological point of view? What are the characteristics of this ambiguous phenomenon? I intend to analyze five essential traits of anxiety from a phenomenological perspective: 1. its quasi-intentional imaginative anticipation 2. the negative inspiration 3. the recurrence of bodily (leiblichen) manifestations 4. the interlocution with an alien power 5. the negative teleology The clarification of the first trait—the quasi-intentional imaginative anticipation— requires a thorough investigation of the relation between anticipation and phantasy which, in my view, can only be achieved through an integrative approach that combines phenomenology with psychoanalysis.

6  A  nxiety Between Excess of Desire and Repetition of Trauma How should we investigate anxiety? Where does this affect come from? Does it come from an excess of attachment to a loved person? Is it the result of a too intense desire? Or is it, on the contrary, the consequence of a negative event and must it, therefore, be thought of in light of the repetition of a trauma? And how are we then to define the relation between the repetition of a trauma and the excess of desire?

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In the different phases of his research on anxiety, Freud’s investigation constantly oscillates between two perspectives: anxiety understood as a repetition of trauma and anxiety based on an obstruction of libidinal forces.40 In his early writings, this tension shows itself in the juxtaposition of a psychological and a physiological perspective. According to the psychological perspective, anxiety is the repetition of a painful past experience. Hysterical symptoms are nothing more than a phenomenon of conversion of an affective trauma. According to the biological perspective, anxiety refers to an accumulation of sexual excitement without Verarbeitung (elaboration).41 Anxiety is an indeterminate affect,42 which destabilizes the bonds in the various spheres (“systems”) of psychic life. Two theories of anxiety are to be found in Freud43: 1. In his early writings dating back to the 1893–1895 period, the etiology of anxiety neurosis is explained as a lack of psychic elaboration of the sexual drives.44 In his study on anxiety neuroses, the clinical analysis of the disorder can be clearly distinguished from his etiological research.45 In his clinical analysis, Freud iden From the outset it should be noted that Freud fails to give a comprehensive explanation of the relationship between these two sides of anxiety. The lack of a clear determination of their relations is a shadow that hangs over his entire account. 41  Laplanche emphasizes the essential role of Verarbeitung in Freud’s analysis of anxiety: it is precisely in the centrality of Verarbeitung that the difference between Freud’s and Rush’s positions must be recognized. The fundamental problem of anxiety neurosis lies in the lack of “symbolization of somatic arousal” (Laplanche 1980, p. 35). In his lecture of December 16, 1970, Laplanche underscores the significance of the term work (Arbeit) for Freudian metapsychology. Verarbeitung implies a process both of transforming and connecting drives: binding as such “arrests” the accumulation/intensification of drives. It produces an order, binding the elements according to a certain coherence (Laplanche 1980, p. 37). Anxiety can be seen as the opposite process of Verarbeitung. In anxiety a process of disconnection (Entbindung) of drives takes place. Anxiety generates an imbalance between different instances of the “psychic apparatus”: it confuses us by confusing ideational elements, phantasies and affects in an invasive way. 42  Particularly visible in Freud’s early writings is his energetic perspective whereby affects are thought of as electrical discharges: conductors of electricity serve as a reference model for drive and affective processes. Anxiety is the least elaborated affect and the closest to a pure energetic discharge, although it is also susceptible to elaboration (Laplanche 1980, p. 39). 43  In addition to Laplanche’s fundamental contribution, the following studies are instructive for the understanding of the relation between Freud’s two theories of anxiety see Compton 1972 and Jeanclaude 2008. 44  “Finally, the last case, − the generation of anxiety neurosis through severe illness, overwork, exhausting sick-nursing, etc., − finds an easy interpretation when brought into relation with the effects of coitus interruptus. Here the psyche, on account of its deflection, would seem to be no longer capable of mastering the somatic excitation, a task on which, as we know, it is continuously engaged. We are aware to what a low level libido can sink under these conditions; and we have here a good example of a neurosis which, although it exhibits no sexual aetiology, nevertheless exhibits a sexual mechanism.” (Freud 1962, p. 111) 45  It is important to consider the distinction between nosology and etiology in relation to Freud’s contemporary reception as well. While his etiological explanations of anxiety are mostly considered outdated today, Freud’s nosological approach still has a strong impact on current diagnostics. As is well-known, since its third edition, the DSM has distanced itself from the psychoanalytic 40

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tifies those specific features of the disturbances that are reported by patients and observed by the clinician. In his etiological study, Freud ascertains and recognizes the necessary conditions required for the manifestation of anxiety disorders. In this regard, Freud makes a distinction between the triggering (and contingent) aspect (“agent provocateur”) and the underlying reason, the real cause of the disturbance. Charcot identifies the real cause of hysteria in hereditary factors, while Freud underlines the importance of sexual life for the genesis of hysteria. Anxiety is related to an overabundance of unused energy. Freud’s first theory of anxiety is decidedly economically oriented. Anxiety is the remnant of what has not undergone the process of “appropriation”: the drives that do not activate phantasies and cannot be prolonged in action. Accordingly, anxiety is characterized by Entbindung—by a separation of affects from representation. It is important to emphasize that the accumulation of this excess of energy is also connected with the process of repression (Verdränugng) which is responsible for the separation between affect and representation. Anxiety is affect without representation, thus its fluctuating, free-floating character (without object). To summarize Freud’s first theory in a schematic way: an anxiety disturbance is a problem of the (lack of) translation of the sexual drives into affects. Affects fail to reach consciousness through the mediation of phantasies. This lack of translation makes it impossible to carry out the very action that would allow an adequate resolution of the tension of the drives. Thus anxiety is understood in light of a double transition: (1) from drive to conscious experience46 and (2) from conscious experience to action. Anxiety disturbances depend on an excessive accumulation of sexual drives of organic origin. Sexual drives do not find any psychic continuation in the phantasies and, therefore, they turn into anxiety. 2. In Hemmung, Symptom und Angst (Inhibition, Symptom, and Anxiety), the second theory of anxiety finds its full expression: the coordinates change and the ego takes the stage. Now central is how the ego prepares for and respond to dangers. The absence of an object is understood in terms of a sense of powerlessness: it is an expression of trauma experienced in the past that is projected and anticipated in the imminent future. The effect of the past trauma remains active over time. As soon as conditions similar to the previously traumatic ones emerge, anxiety warns us that a dangerous situation is about to arise.47 perspective and indicates the pathological symptoms of disorders in a neutral way, without adhering in a prejudicial way to any theoretical model. Still, the very distinction between different forms of anxiety in the DSM-5 remains strongly influenced by Freudian theory. For example, the DSM’s account of anxiety introduces a distinction between different phenomena such as phobia, “panic attack” and generalized anxiety, following the approach elaborated by Freud in Lecture XXV of A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. 46  In his 1895 paper, Freud curiously calls libido precisely the conscious elaboration of biological sexual drives through phantasies. 47  Freud’s second theory of anxiety as a signal also fulfills an important function for the psychoanalytic approach to affects as such. It paved the way for a differentiated analysis of the emotional life, by abandoning a one-sided drive theory. Mentzos rightly claimed that gradually the insight imposes

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4  Anxiety, Desire and Imagination We can find out still more about this if, not content with tracing anxiety back to danger, we go on to enquire what the essence and meaning of a danger-situation is. Clearly, it consists in the subject’s estimation of his own strength compared to the magnitude of the danger and in his admission of helplessness in the face of it—physical helplessness if the danger is real and psychical helplessness if it is libidinal. In doing this he will be guided by the actual experiences he has had. (Whether he is wrong in his estimation or not is immaterial for the outcome.) Let us call a situation of helplessness of this kind that has been actually experienced a traumatic situation. We shall then have good grounds for distinguishing a traumatic situation from a danger-situation. The individual will have made an important advance in his capacity for self-preservation if he can foresee and expect a traumatic situation of this kind which entails helplessness, instead of simply waiting for it to happen. Let us call a situation which contains the determinant for such an expectation a danger-situation. It is in this situation that the signal of anxiety is given. The signal announces: ‘I am expecting a situation of helplessness to set in’, or: ‘The present situation reminds me of one of the traumatic experiences I have had before. Therefore I will anticipate the trauma and behave as though it had already come, while there is yet time to turn it aside.’ Anxiety is therefore on the one hand an expectation of a trauma, and on the other a repetition of it in a mitigated form. Thus the two features of anxiety which we have noted have a different origin. Its connection with expectation belongs to the danger-situation, whereas its indefiniteness and lack of object belong to the traumatic situation of helplessness—the situation which is anticipated in the danger-­ situation.48 (Freud 1959, p. 166)

Traumatic experiences are characterized by an intense sense of helplessness. Helplessness can arise in very common situations that are usually hardly associated with anxiety. Subjective responses are blind to the “real” present circumstances, to the “actual” danger. Rather, one repeats the reactions one had before an overwhelming event in the past.

itself that not only anxiety, but “almost all other emotions and feelings also have the function of signals, of indicators that give rise to pleasant or unpleasant, dangerous or safeguarding states, and thus to corresponding reaction” (Mentzos 1982, p. 28). 48  “Wir kommen weiter, wenn wir uns auch mit der Zurückführung der Angst auf die Gefahr nicht begnügen. Was ist der Kern, die Bedeutung der Gefahrsituation? Offenbar die Einschätzung unserer Stärke im Vergleich zu ihrer Größe, das Zugeständnis unserer Hilflosigkeit gegen sie, der materiellen Hilflosigkeit im Falle der Realgefahr, der psychischen Hilflosigkeit im Falle der Triebgefahr. Unser Urteil wird dabei von wirklich gemachten Erfahrungen geleitet werden; ob es sich in seiner Schätzung irrt, ist für den Erfolg gleichgültig. Heißen wir eine solche erlebte Situation von Hilflosigkeit eine traumatische; wir haben dann guten Grund, die traumatische Situation von der Gefahrsituation zu trennen. Es ist nun ein wichtiger Fortschritt in unserer Selbstbewahrung, wenn eine solche traumatische Situation von Hilflosigkeit nicht abgewartet, sondern vorhergesehen, erwartet, wird. Die Situation, in der die Bedingung für solche Erwartung enthalten ist, heiße die Gefahrsituation, in ihr wird das Angstsignal gegeben. Dies will besagen: ich erwarte, dass sich eine Situation von Hilflosigkeit ergeben wird, oder die gegenwärtige Situation erinnert mich an eines der früher erfahrenen traumatischen Erlebnisse. Daher antizipiere ich dieses Trauma, will mich benehmen, als ob es schon da wäre, solange noch Zeit ist, es abzuwenden. Die Angst ist also einerseits Erwartung des Traumas, anderseits eine gemilderte Wiederholung desselben. Die beiden Charaktere, die uns an der Angst aufgefallen sind, haben also verschiedenen Ursprung. Ihre Beziehung zur Erwartung gehört zur Gefahrsituation, ihre Unbestimmtheit und Objektlosigkeit zur traumatischen Situation der Hilflosigkeit, die in der Gefahrsituation antizipiert wird.” (Freud 1991, p. 199)

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From a systematic point of view, the feeling of helplessness illustrated in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety corresponds to the notion of anxiety development elaborated in lecture XXV of A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (see Sect. 3 of this chapter). The aspect of signalling danger is, in turn, analogous to the concept of anxiety-preparedness. Only the ego can, strictly speaking, feel anxiety. For this reason, the ego is defined as the seat of anxiety.49 Freud’s so-called “second theory” of anxiety is a consequence of the elaboration of the “second” topic described in The Ego and the Id: Anxiety is an affective state and as such can, of course, only be felt by the ego. The id cannot have anxiety as the ego can; for it is not an organization and cannot make a judgement about situations of danger. On the other hand it very often happens that processes take place or begin to take place in the id which cause the ego to produce anxiety. Indeed, it is probable that the earliest repressions as well as most of the later ones are motivated by an ego-anxiety of this sort in regard to particular processes in the id. Here again we are rightly distinguishing between two cases: the case in which something occurs in the id which activates one of the danger-situations for the ego and induces the latter to give the anxiety-signal for inhibition to take place, and the case in which a situation analogous to the trauma of birth is established in the id and an automatic reaction of anxiety ensues.50 (Freud 1959, p. 140)

In Freud’s passage it becomes apparent that anxiety is interpreted both as a response to an “inadmissible” drive and as a repetition of a traumatic event. Here the two models of anxiety come to the fore in an exemplary way. On the one hand, anxiety is related to the repetition of a trauma: in this sense, it is an “automatic” process. Following Rank, Freud considers the event of birth as a paradigmatic situation of trauma. On the other hand, the raison d’être of repression is to be found in the anxiety that the ego feels in relation to one’s own drives. The relation between the unconscious drives and the ego is marked by anxiety in a double sense: (1) even before being understood, the drives disturb the ego as anxiety; (2) once it has had an inkling of this danger, the ego uses anxiety to avoid “contact” with these dangerous drives. When one speaks of anxiety as a signal for the ego, one must underscore the

 “The objection to this view arose from our coming to regard the ego as the sole seat of anxiety. It was one of the results of the attempt at a structural division of the mental apparatus which I made in The Ego and the Id. Whereas the old view made it natural to suppose that anxiety arose from the libido belonging to the repressed drives, the new one, on the contrary, made the ego the source of anxiety. Thus it is a question of ego-anxiety or drive-(id-) anxiety. Since the energy which the ego employs is desexualized, the new view also tended to weaken the close connection between anxiety and libido.” (Freud 1959, p. 161 trans. modified) 50  “Die Angst ist ein Affektzustand, der natürlich nur vom Ich verspürt werden kann. Das Es kann nicht Angst haben wie das Ich, es ist keine Organisation, kann Gefahrsituationen nicht beurteilen. Dagegen ist es ein überaus häufiges Vorkommnis, daß sich im Es Vorgänge vorbereiten oder ­vollziehen, die dem Ich Anlass zur Angstentwicklung geben; in der Tat sind die wahrscheinlich frühesten Verdrängungen, wie die Mehrzahl aller späteren, durch solche Angst des Ichs vor einzelnen Vorgängen im Es motiviert. Wir unterscheiden hier wiederum mit gutem Grund die beiden Fälle, daß sich im Es etwas ereignet, was eine der Gefahrsituationen fürs Ich aktiviert und es somit bewegt, zur Inhibition das Angstsignal zu geben, und den anderen Fall, daß sich im Es die dem Geburtstrauma analoge Situation herstellt, in der es automatisch zur Angstreaktion kommt.” (Freud 1991, p. 171) 49

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essential ambiguity of this process which cannot be traced back to either the paradigm of activity or that of passivity. Accordingly, the ego is at once the seat of anxiety and its producer: while the ego is disturbed by anxiety warning it of a danger, it expediently directs anxiety to escape the threatening situation (Laplanche 1980, p. 67). When one defines the ego as seat of anxiety, the passive aspect is accentuated: here we are dealing with the ego as a seismic area exposed to affects which lay beyond one’s control. When one speaks of the ego as a producer of anxiety, its active aspect is emphasized: the ego is capable of orienting anxiety in a certain direction. The ego has more leeway to orient the situation according to its purposes.51 To summarize: in both of Freud’s theories of anxiety, phantasy plays an important role; although he does not pay its function the attention it deserves. In his first theory, anxiety is connected to the failure of elaborating (verarbeiten) the affect, since phantasies are not activated. In his second theory, phantasy is involved in the (negative) anticipation of future circumstances. As already clear from Freud’s earlier report of anxious waiting in anxiety neurosis (see Chapter 5, Sect. 5.1), if we start from the assumption that anticipation of danger in anxiety is mediated by phantasy, one of the most obvious problems of Freud’s theory is the absence of a thorough analysis of the relation between anxiety as a signal of danger, imagination, and anticipation. Freud explicitly states that anxiety has to do with waiting.52 But how does one expect danger? How is the (future or impending) dangerous situation intended and apprehended? How does our anxiety-preparedness (Angstvorbereitung) take place? What role does imagination play in this context? In this regard, it is useful to examine Laplanche’s comment on a capital passage from Jenseits des Lustprinzips (“Beyond the Pleasure Principle”). According to Laplanche, it is inaccurate to affirm that anxiety has no object. On the contrary, anxiety is precisely characterized by deviating from the object, by passing over it, as one is caught up in one’s own feeling. Nonetheless, a certain intentional moment of waiting is inherent in anxiety (Angst). Laplanche points out this intentional moment by intervening with a comment on Freud’s text: Terror, fear, and anxiety [Schreck, Furcht, Angst] are terms that are wrongly used as synonyms; their relation to danger allows them to be differentiated. The term “anxiety” designates a condition characterized by an expectation of danger and the preparation for it, even

 It is important to note that the economic perspective is not really overcome in the second theory of anxiety. Rather, it is integrated within an analysis of anxiety where the ego is understood as its seat. In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety Freud relentlessly oscillates between two positions that are difficult to reconcile: on the one hand, he insists on the irreducible difference between his first theory and the second theory. And on the other hand, Freud recurrently returns to an economic perspective: the overabundance of drives or affects is automatically transformed into anxiety. 52  “Der Angstaffekt zeigt einige Züge, deren Untersuchung weitere Aufklärung verspricht. Die Angst hat eine unverkennbare Beziehung zur Erwartung; sie ist Angst vor etwas. Es haftet ihr ein Charakter von Unbestimmtheit und Objektlosigkeit an; der korrekte Sprachgebrauch ändert selbst ihren Namen, wenn sie ein Objekt gefunden hat, und ersetzt ihn dann durch Furcht.” (Freud 1991, p. 197) 51

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if it is unknown [there is thus the idea of an intentionality of expectation, a Bereitschaft, a preparation, or an Erwartung].53 (Laplanche 1980, p. 55)

If we return to the distinction between anxiety-preparedness and anxiety development, it is evident that anxiety preparedness cannot be understood without a careful study of the intentional moment implied in it. Formulated in more rigorous terms: it is necessary to study “the imaginative anticipation” of danger in anxiety. In my view, it is impossible to carry out a study of this kind without a rigorous phenomenological analysis of the relation between obscure and clear phantasy.

7  Phenomenology of Phantasy Husserl paves the way for a new understanding of subjective life through systematic and rigorous research on the specific correlations between intentional acts and intended objects. Accordingly, he carefully analyzes the structural differences between several acts such as perception, remembering, image-consciousness (Bildbewusstsein), and phantasy (Phantasie). Undoubtedly, one of the most notable contributions of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology lies in his investigation of imagination and phantasy (Phantasie).54 If one wants to simplify Husserl’s investigation of imagination, one could summarize his complex path in the following terms: initially, the relation between phantasy and image-consciousness was at the center of his investigation. The former is rooted in the perception of a present object, such as a painting, that refers to another (absent) object (Hua XXIII, p. 82). Pure phantasy, on the contrary, is not based on the perception of a present object. Once he recognized the radical difference between image-consciousness (anchored on the perceptual field) and pure phantasy (detached from the present horizon of the world), Husserl’s research on phantasy subsequently focused upon the comparison with another form of presentification: remembering (Wiedererinnerung).

 The square brackets are Laplanche’s. As already indicated, the passage by Freud being commented on is taken from Jenseits des Lustprinzips (“Beyond the Pleasure Principle”). “Effroi, peur, angoisse [Schreck, Furcht, Angst] sont des termes qu’on a tort d’utiliser comme synonymes; leur rapport au danger permet bien de les différencier. Le terme d’angoisse désigne un état caractérisé par l’attente du danger et la préparation à celui-ci, même s’il est inconnu [il y a donc l’idée d’une intentionnalité d’attente, une Bereitschaft, une préparation, ou encore une Erwartung].” (Laplanche 1980, p. 55) 54  Husserl’s notion of Phantasie is difficult to translate into English. I will use the terms imagination and phantasy interchangeably. Needless to say, the technical term ‘phantasy’ in Husserl’s phenomenology is not identical with the use of ‘fantasy’ in (English) ordinary language (see Casey 2003). Phantasieren means the act of imagining. However, the term phantasy also has some advantages. Phantasy and Phantasie refer to the same Greek root. Furthermore, phantasy does not refer to mental images, nor does it overemphasize the visual aspects, as the term imagination does. Accordingly, it is also easier to contrast phantasy with image-consciousness, thereby avoiding any possible misunderstanding. 53

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Husserl’s mature position considers the act of imagining as analogous to the act of remembering. Remembering is an intuitive consciousness of a past perception, while the act of imagining is consciousness of a fictional perception (Bernet 2012, p. 5). The difference between phantasy and remembering lies primarily in their differing doxic modalities. Acts such as perception, memory, or anticipation of a future object, entail a specific doxic positionality: the objects intended in these acts are experienced as real events occurring in different times during the life of consciousness. In remembering, we believe that a particular perception has actually taken place in the past: the intuitive situation is experienced as having been real. The object of an imagining act is not experienced as real. In phantasy, the positionality is neutralized: we relate to a perception that is fictional, one that does not belong to the common horizon of the world. In this regard, it is not surprising that Husserl treats acts of phantasy as quasi-perception. The act of imagining is experienced by inner consciousness as “a simulation of a possible perception”55 (Jansen 2016, p. 70). The simulation of pure phantasy has an enigmatic character: on the one hand, it has the same internal structure as remembering, intentionally implying an unmodified perception. On the other hand, this perception is only a pure possibility rather than a past experience that occurred in the common world. Put differently: it is possible to grasp the meaning of the pure possibility only under the condition of having clarified the intimate relationship between phantasy and freedom (Sartre 1940/2004; Maldiney 1991). Phantasie should be understood as quasi-perception. It should be characterized as a non-positing intuitive presentification. Presentification (Vergegenwärtigung) is a reproductive modification of a perceptual consciousness; a reproductive modification of a possible perception in the as-if (“als ob”) mode. Imagining is an act of consciousness that constitutes a distinctive awareness of objects without referring to the perceptual horizon: “In itself, however, the phantasy presentation (Phantasievorstellung) does not contain a manifold intention; representation (Vergegenwärtigung) [of phantasy] is an ultimate mode of intuitive objectivation (Vorstellung), just like perceptual objectivation, just like presentation (Gegenwärtigung)” (Hua XXIII, p. 86/93). This sentence unambiguously shows the difficulties in translating Husserl’s technical language into English. John J. Brough renders the same word “Vorstellung” first as (phantasy) “presentation” (“Phantasievorstellung”) and then as “objectivation.” The situation is particularly intricate since the term “presentation” is also used for translating the word “Gegenwärtigung,” which is opposed to “Vergegenwärtigung” (presentification). For this reason it is appropriate to quote the original text in German: “Aber an sich selbst enthält die Phantasievorstellung keine mehrfältige Intention,  Referring to an actual debate, Jansen highlights the sensory character of imagination, thus contrasting two widespread notions of imagination: (1) as a basic faculty for synthesis or, (2) a derivative product of perception (Jansen 2016). One can ask if the term ‘quasi-sensory’ would be more appropriate here. This formulation would not only have the advantage of being loyal to Husserl’s idea, but may also emphasize the intuitive character of phantasy. At the same time, it would stress the specific coherent deformation that takes place in the world of phantasy.

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Vergegenwärtigung ist ein letzter Modus intuitiver Vorstellung, genauso wie Wahrnehmungsvorstellung, wie Gegenwärtigung” (Hua XXIII, p. 86). The world of pure phantasy is another world, one that is radically separated from the world of perceptual presence. In this respect it is particularly different from image-consciousness: “the phantasy appearance does not appear within perception’s field of regard and hence is not a perceptual figment” (Husserl 2005, p. 70).56 Husserl’s investigations of phantasy also lead to further distinctions. Two differentiations are of great relevance: one is the distinction between pure phantasy and perceptual phantasy, while the other concerns the difference between clear and unclear phantasies. This latter distinction will be at the center of this Chapter. Perceptive phantasy concerns fictional experience anchored in the perceptual horizon, as it happens in theatre: “in the case of a theatrical performance, we live in a world of perceptual phantasy” (Husserl 2005, p. 616).57 What we experience in a theatre has an ambiguous and dynamic nature. We know that the fictional character incarnated by the actor is not real, yet we do not rule out the succession of appearances as nothingness. On the contrary, through them we live a different life. Theatrical experience has a ‘transitional’ character from actual perception to phantasy: But when a play is presented, no consciousness of depiction whatsoever needs to be excited, and what then appears is a pure perceptual figment. We live in neutrality; we do not carry out any actual positing at all with respect to what is intuited. Everything that occurs there, everything there in the way of things and persons, everything said and done there, and so on—all of this has the characteristic of the as-if.58 (Husserl 2005, p. 617)

Now that we have addressed this distinction between pure and perceptive phantasies, we can move beyond these preliminary distinctions and address the core theme of our analysis of anxiety: the distinction between clear and unclear phantasy. We will see that the analysis of this distinction will question the legitimacy of considering forms of unclear phantasy as intentional acts. In anticipation, we can say that one relevant result of the current investigation is that it demonstrates the difficulty of conceiving of unclear phantasy in terms of quasi-perception.

 “Die Phantasieerscheinung erscheint nicht innerhalb des Blickfeldes der Wahrnehmung und ist daher kein Fiktum der Wahrnehmung.” (Hua XXIII, p. 64) 57  “Bei einer Theateraufführung leben wir in einer Welt perzeptiver Phantasie (…).” (Hua XXIII, pp. 514–515) 58  “Wo aber ein Schauspiel dargestellt wird, da braucht gar kein Abbildungsbewusstsein erregt werden, und was da erscheint, ist ein reines perzeptives Fiktum. Wir leben in der Neutralität, wir vollziehen hinsichtlich des Angeschauten gar keine wirkliche Position, alles, was da vorkommt, was da ist an Dingen und Personen, was da gesagt, getan wird usw., alles hat den Charakter des Als-ob.” (Hua XXIII, pp. 515–516) 56

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8  Clear and Unclear Phantasies Husserl’s research on clear and unclear phantasy is carried out in his study on pure phantasy. Pure phantasies do not imply any reference to the perceptual horizon. In clear phantasy, we have within the flow of intentional consciousness the constitution of a vivid phantasized object. In some (rare) cases, appearances of phantasy reach an intuitive fulfillment so vivid as to approach that of perceptual appearances.59 However, the situation is usually very different: [...] there are often cases in which phantasy appearances present themselves as vigorous formations, cases in which they bring to intuition objects that are sharply drawn, plastic, and color saturated. However, in countless cases—indeed, in most cases—the situation is otherwise. The phantasy object appears as empty phantom, transparently pale, with colors wholly unsaturated, with imperfect plastic form, often with only vague and steady contours filled out with je ne sais quoi or, properly speaking, with nothing, with nothing that one would assign as a defined surface, colored in such and such a way, to what appears (Husserl 2005, pp. 63–64).60

I would like to stress two aspects of this pivotal passage: first, according to Husserl most phantasies are not clear. It is essential to stress this point since the majority of the secondary research on Husserl’s notion of pure phantasy primarily focuses on the clear form, giving too little attention to the form of unclear phantasy (Saraiva 1970; Volonté 1997; Bernet 2003, 2004a, 2012; Casey 2000, 2003; Jansen 2010, 2016; Lohmar 2008; Cobos and Javier 2013; Shum 2015). Nevertheless, unclear phantasy is more the rule than the exception: “in countless cases—indeed, in most cases” there is no formation of a clear phantasized object. Especially if one intends to contribute to the mutual enlightenment between phenomenology and psychoanalysis, it seems most appropriate to emphasize the relevance of unclear phantasy. From this perspective, it is easy to understand the second moment in the above quoted passage. The concrete boundaries of phantasy formations are extremely difficult to identify. These formations fundamentally differ from the continuous series of adumbrations at work in perception. Also, their fulfillment is totally indeterminate. Unclear phantasy has its own atmosphere in which everything tends to be

 “Occasionally—in the case of most people, only quite exceptionally—phantasy appearances present themselves in a manner that approximates that of perceptual appearance, indeed, that seems to approach phenomenological equality with it. Whether it actually is and can be its equal is difficult to decide. It is enough that one can be very uncertain about whether any difference at all exists for certain classes of persons and cases. In such limit cases, however, it is also uncertain whether hallucination or a physical image apprehension based on hallucination does not replace genuine phantasy apprehension” (Hua XXIII, p. 58/63). 60  “[...] es gibt oft Fälle, wo sich Phantasieerscheinungen als kernige Gestaltung geben, wo sie scharf gezeichnete, plastische, farbensatte Gegenstände zur Anschauung bringen. In unzähligen und den meisten Fällen verhält es sich anders. Die Phantasieobjekte erscheinen wie leere Schemen, durchsichtig blass, mit ganz ungesättigten Farben, mit mangelhafter Plastik, oft nur vagen und schwankenden Konturen, ausgefüllt mit einem je ne sais quoi, oder eigentlich mit nichts ausgefüllt, mit nichts, was dem Erscheinenden als begrenzende, so und so gefärbte Fläche zugedeutet würde.” (Hua XXIII, p. 59) 59

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vaguely grey. Husserl’s phenomenological investigation continues by showing the protean character of these appearances: The appearance changes in protean fashion; something flashes there as color and plastic form and is immediately gone again. And the color, even when it flashes, is peculiarly empty, unsaturated, without force; and similarly, the form is something so vague, so ghostly, that it could not occur to us to posit it in the sphere of actual perception and imaging. These are distinctions that we do indeed describe with expressions taken from the domain of perception and yet do not find in that domain; they are new distinctions.61 (Husserl 2005, p. 64)

Here, we encounter a different and specific form of phenomenalisation: unclear phantasies are characterized by a different form of passive synthesis and temporalization. Husserl’s research on unclear phantasy reinforces his conviction in pure phantasy’s independence from the field of perception. Unclear phantasy does not rely on an image-consciousness: “If obscure phantasies become constituted on the basis of an imaging, then the primary image object is already a phantasy object” (Husserl 2005, p. 95).62 Unclear phantasies do not presuppose perception in any way. It is noteworthy that we do not have any coherent intuition in unclear phantasy. We cannot say that we do not see anything in this form of imagining, but it is also not the case that we see some-thing clearly. We experience something in between seeing and not-seeing, as if we could somehow glimpse the chaotic life of these overdetermined and fragile appearances. The form of intuition as such is modified: Rather, instead of intuition itself, we have a rudiment of intuition, a shadow of intuition. In the case of very obscure phantasies, the presentification is reduced to a wholly insufficient residue; and if this residue is suppressed entirely, as it is when the phantasms are interrupted, then the determinate but empty intention aimed at the object remains. With the sudden reappearance of the impoverished residues, the empty intention is confirmed and is filled with respect to these moments or those. However, it turns into actual intuition only when a sufficiently rich image is given. The gaps, the dissolving hues that disappear in the hollow light of phantasy’s field of vision, and so on, are objectivated only when we choose to objectivate them, only when we choose to interpret them on the analogy of real objectiv-

 “Proteusartig ändert sich die Erscheinung, da blitzt etwas wie Farbe und plastische Form auf, und schon ist es wieder weg, und die Farbe, auch wo sie aufblitzt, hat etwas eigentümlich Leeres, Ungesättigtes, Kraftloses; und ähnlich die Form etwas so Vages, Schattenhaftes, dass uns nicht einfallen konnte, dergleichen in die Sphäre aktueller Wahrnehmung und Bildlichkeit hineinzusetzen. Das sind Unterschiede, die wir zwar mit Ausdrücken aus dem Wahrnehmungsgebiet beschreiben und doch nicht in ihm wiederfinden; es sind neue Unterschiede.” (Hua XXIII, p.  59). Husserl makes similar remarks about this difficulty of articulation in his investigation of timeconsciousness in the famous text Nr. 54 of Hua X: we do not have the right notions and therefore must borrow concepts developed in other contexts if we are to describe these “new distinctions.” “This flow is something we speak of in conformity with what is constituted, but it is not ‘something in objective time.’ It is absolute subjectivity and has the absolute properties of something to be designated metaphorically as ‘flow’; the absolute properties of a point of actuality, of the primal source-point ‘now’, etc. In the actuality-experience we have the primal source-point and a continuity of moments of reverberation. For all of this, we have no names” (Husserl 1991, p. 382). 62  “Wenn die unklaren Phantasien sich auf Grund einer Bildlichkeit konstituieren, so ist das primäre Bildobjekt schon ein Phantasieobjekt.” (Hua XXIII, p. 88) 61

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ity. Otherwise they simply remain without objective interpretation […].63 (Husserl 2005, p. 95, trans. modified)

The intention operating in unclear phantasies has the tendency to become empty and—we can add—disoriented. It is determinate to the extent that it has a direction: it aims at an object. Yet, the appearances change so rapidly and abruptly that they surprise any anticipation. It is as if its intention is constantly getting lost. It always fails to “center” the object, it constantly misses it. This passage concretely shows the profound indeterminacy of this inchoate dimension where nothing is stable. Phantasy’s field of vision has a unique character incomparable to the perceptual field. The world of phantasy is another world where everything is volatile. It is hence not appropriate to speak of objects in the dimension of unclear phantasies. Therefore, I systematically use the term “appearances.” The validity of this use finds a confirmation in Husserl’s text that I have just quoted. We can objectify the appearances of unclear Phantasien, yet we cannot grasp them through this act of objectification. Such supposedly possible grasping would reduce them to an intentional paradigm that is incompatible with their ways of appearing (and disappearing). Now, I intend to further deepen the understanding of this inchoate realm by analyzing the notion of inner-time consciousness: what impact does the formation of these incoherent appearances have on the notion of inner consciousness? Does the temporalization of unclear phantasies lead (and perhaps even force) us to rethink Husserl’s concept of inner time consciousness? I intend to investigate these questions by considering two different moments of inner consciousness that are strictly intertwined: (1) inner consciousness as impressional consciousness and (2) the articulation of inner time-consciousness in its three ecstatic moments: primary impression, retention and protention.

9  Inner Consciousness 9.1  Inner Consciousness as Impressional Consciousness Each intentional act is not only directed to something else, but is also characterized by an internal consciousness due to its coinciding directedness to the subject. Zahavi rightly emphasizes that Husserl often uses three different terms for referring to the  “Zwar, wir haben nicht eine bloss leere Intention, andererseits aber auch keine volle Anschauung, sondern einen Ansatz von Anschauung, einen Schatten von Anschauung statt ihrer selbst. Bei sehr dunklen Phantasien reduziert sich die Vergegenwärtigung auf einen ganz dürftigen Rest, und fällt dieser ganz weg, wie beim Intermittieren der Phantasmen, so bleibt die bestimmte, aber leere Intention auf den Gegenstand übrig. Mit den dürftigen, wieder auftauchenden Resten bekräftigt sie sich und füllt sie sich nach den oder jenen Momenten. Aber zur wirklichen Anschauung wird sie erst, wenn ein reichhaltiges Bild gegeben ist. Die Lücken, die zerfließenden Färbungen, die untertauchen in den Lichtstaub des Phantasiegesichtsfeldes usw., dergleichen wird erst objektiviert, wenn wir wollen, wenn wir dies nach Analogie wirklicher Gegenständlichkeit interpretieren wollen. Sonst bleibt es einfach ohne gegenständliche Interpretation (…).” (Hua XXIII, p. 88)

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same phenomenon: ‘internal consciousness,’ ‘primary consciousness’ (Urbewußtsein), and ‘impressional consciousness’ (Zahavi 2003, p. 90). Inner consciousness can be conceived as impressional prereflective awareness of our intentional life: Through inner time-consciousness one is aware not only of the stream of consciousness (prereflective self-awareness), but also of the acts as demarcated temporal objects in subjective time (reflective self-awareness) and of the transcendent objects in objective time (intentional consciousness). Inner time-consciousness is simply another name for the prereflective self-awareness of our experiences, a streaming self-awareness that is not itself an intentional act, a temporal unit, or an immanent object (Hua X, p.  127), but an intrinsic and irrelational feature of our consciousness. (Zahavi 2003, p. 91)

In the famous Appendix XII of his 1905 Lectures, Husserl writes: Every act is consciousness of something, but there is also consciousness of every act. Every experience is ‘sensed’, is immanently ‘perceived’ (internal consciousness), although naturally not posited, meant (to perceive here does not mean to grasp something and to be turned towards it in an act of meaning).64 (Husserl 1991, p. 130)

Bernet emphasizes the essential role that inner consciousness has in the subject’s need to orient itself in the intricate web of the different intentional acts (Bernet 2004b, p. 54). A precise description of the inner consciousness of the act of phantasy is one of the most difficult challenges for phenomenological research. Already in clear phantasy we are dealing with a very complex phenomenon. When we imagine, we are aware of the intentional object in terms of an ‘as if’-consciousness. The object is experienced as fictional. In contrast to the fictionality of the object, we are impressionally aware of performing the act of imagining. In other words, the act of imagining is surely not experienced as being imaginary itself. Like the rest of our acts, it belongs to the history of our personal life in the horizon of the common world. In several texts, Husserl’s subtle phenomenological analysis attempts to grasp the complex relation between the fictional object of phantasy, the living performing act of imagining, and the inner consciousness of both the real act and the fictional object. The situation is even more intricate regarding unclear phantasy: what kind of inner consciousness is at work when we experience the ephemeral appearances of unclear phantasy? How can we be aware of them? We are touched by these appearances without the possibility of identifying them with certainty, even in their doxic

 “Jeder Akt ist Bewusstsein von etwas, aber jeder Akt ist auch bewusst. Jedes Erlebnis ist ‘empfunden,’ ist immanent ‘wahrgenommen’ (inneres Bewusstsein), wenn auch natürlich nicht gesetzt, gemeint (Wahrnehmen heißt hier nicht meinend zugewendet sein und erfassen)” (Hua X, p. 126). Another interesting passage is the following one: “Or every experience is ‘consciousness,’ and consciousness is consciousness of …. But every experience is itself experienced [erlebt], and to that extent also ‘conscious’ [bewußt]” (Husserl 1991, p.  301 [trans. modified]). “Oder jedes Erlebnis ist ‘Bewusstsein’ und Bewusstsein ist Bewusstsein von … Aber jedes Erlebnis ist aber selbst erlebt und insofern auch ‘bewußt.’” (Hua X, p. 291)

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modality. Therefore, to fully understand the reason for this confusion and lack of orientation, we must consider a second aspect of inner consciousness.

9.2  I nner Time-Consciousness in the Light of the Relation Between Primary Impression, Protention and Retention The notion of inner time consciousness refers to the intertwining between protention, primary impression, and retention. It is well-known that Husserl explores different possibilities for defining the relation between these constitutive moments of time-consciousness. In the 1905 Lectures, he tends to conceive of the primary impression as the source of the temporal process.65 Nevertheless, he offers a different interpretation in the first and the second texts of Bernau Manuscripts: primary impression is considered a result of the intertwining between the rententional continuum (with its double intentionality) and the protentional continuum (with its double intentionality) (Hua XXXIII, p. 38). Although different interpretations are explored for defining the relation between primary impression, retention, and protention, Husserl always maintains the assumption that there is one invariant and unique form of time-consciousness (Hua X, p. 373). Previous research has insisted on the potentially revolutionary implications of Husserl’s analysis of the temporalization of unclear phantasy, particularly for rethinking the notion of inner time-consciousness as such. This is especially true concerning the relation between primary impression, retention and protention (cf., Richir 2000, 2004; Micali 2010). Do we have to assume an invariable structure of time consciousness common to all experiences? Or is it possible that the relation between primary impression, retention and protention modifies itself in different forms of experience (cf., Micali 2008, pp.  218–234)? Husserl highlights three essential characteristics of the temporalization of appearances in unclear phantasy: (1) their protean character; (2) their abrupt appearing and disappearing; (3) the intermittence. 1. The appearances of unclear phantasy have a protean character: they incessantly change without constituting a coherent unity: “An object has just now come to appearance that may have developed out of the previous object but is no longer precisely the same object; on the contrary, it is a different object, with represen-

 It is also important to mention that in Band X there are passages in which Husserl emphasizes the fundamental role of retention in relation to the inner time consciousness: only through the process of retention can the primary impression appear to consciousness. Derrida investigates the intricate (and shifted) relation between primary impression and retention moment in La voix et le phénomène (Derrida 1967; see Micali 2008, pp. 170–173).

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tational moments that are less rich” (Husserl 2005, p. 66).66 These appearances have a rhapsodic nature. An appearance is followed by another completely heterogeneous occurring without any integration with the previous one. Different appearances belonging to different objects succeed without any consistency: “Thus, for example, I present Bismarck to myself; specifically, through one of the famous images depicting him in a cuirassier’s uniform. Then suddenly another image of him, in civilian clothes, emerges, and so on”67 (Husserl 2005, p. 66). Husserl speaks of the “object” here. He emphasizes the indeterminacy of its way of appearing in unclear phantasy: “the appearing object fluctuates in protean fashion” (Husserl 2005, p. 67) (“der erscheinende Gegenstand proteusartig wechselt”) (Hua XIII, p. 63). As already said, it would be appropriate to substitute the word “object” with “appearance.”68 Specific appearances suddenly emerge. These fluctuating and overdetermined appearances can be confusedly referred to different objects. Sometimes the appearances are changing and fluctuating to such an extent that they may be referred to any possible object. The presenting content undergoes continuous change: “On the side of phantasy, the absence of stability, the fleetingness and constant variation of the presenting contents, not only with respect to their fullness, but also with respect to their quality, their specific character as a whole”69 (Husserl 2005, p. 70). 2. The genesis of the appearances of unclear phantasy is always sudden, abrupt and unexpected: “Along with this protean mutability of the presenting contents, the objective appearances change eo ipso and in parallel. And as a rule they are not only mutable but also change abruptly” (Husserl 2005, p. 70).70 In this respect they are radically different from the series of appearances belonging to perception. The experience of an object in the perceptual field is characterized by a stable and consistent order: a synthesis of adumbrations takes place in a highly coherent way. Usually, however, the appearances in phantasy do not succeed one another in this order: “the object presents itself at one moment from the front, then suddenly from the rear; on one occasion it presents itself as it appeared at some definite time and then as it appeared at an entirely different time, in which  “Es ist eben ein Gegenstand zur Erscheinung gekommen, der aus dem vorigen sich herausentwickelt haben mag, aber eben nicht mehr derselbe ist, sondern ein anderer, mit weniger reichen repr  sentativen Momenten.” (Hua XXIII, p. 64) 67  “Ich stelle mir Bismarck vor, und zwar durch eines der bekannten Bilder in Kürassier Uniform. Dann taucht plötzlich ein anderes Bild auf in Zivil etc.” (Hua XXIII, p. 62) 68  Although Husserl accurately demonstrated the delayed (reconstructive and supplementary) character of the objectifying interpretation of the appearances of obscure phantasy, a consistent distinction between object and appearance is lacking in his analysis. Here, it is necessary to underline an additional problematic aspect of Husserl’s analysis of obscure phantasy in paragraphs §41–43 of volume XXIII. Several obscurities of Husserl’s investigation of unclear phantasies are due to the fact that his analysis still has image-consciousness as its reference point (Bildbewusstsein). 69  “Auf seiten der Phantasie der Mangel der Festigkeit, die Flüchtigkeit und das beständige Variieren der darstellenden Inhalte, nicht nur hinsichtlich ihrer Fülle, sondern auch hinsichtlich ihrer Qualität, ihrer inhaltlichen Eigenart überhaupt.” (Hua XXIII, p. 64) 70  “Mit dieser proteusartigen Veränderlichkeit der darstellenden Inhalte ändern sich parallel und eo ipso die gegenständlichen Erscheinungen, und sie sind in der Regel nicht nur veränderlich, sondern sie wechseln auch in abrupter Weise.” (Hua XXIII, p. 64) 66

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case the two times are widely separated” (Husserl 2005, p. 71).71 The emergence of the different appearances is not subject to any stable pattern; it always surprises the subject. Richir compares them with the Einfall (“sudden idea”)—we are not capable of anticipating them (Richir 2000, p. 74). Because of the abrupt, radical transformation of these appearances, the retentional continuum is not able to set in and develop itself. The absence of a stable order creates great difficulties in assessing the temporal relationship between the appearances. Any effort to evaluate the interval between the two times (with regard to the emergence of two appearances) becomes highly problematic. 3. The third essential character of the unclear phantasy lies in the intermittence of the appearances. Usually, the appearances of unclear phantasy do not emerge in a kaleidoscopic fashion and then simply disappear into nothingness. These appearances tend to return. “If we disregard these discontinuities, others certainly come into consideration: namely, the intermittency of the image. Its fleetingness, its disappearing and returning”72 (Husserl 2005, p. 67). Richir rightly emphasizes that the ‘appearances’ of unclear phantasy escape the dimension of the present, even in its most primitive form as living present (lebendige Gegenwart). Neither retentions nor protentions are able to attach themselves to the ‘primal impression’ that appears by surprise and immediately disappears. Here the quotation marks on “primary impression” are mandatory. It is difficult to think a primary impression detached from the retentional continuum and from the series of protentions. Is it legitimate to consider these three characteristics as essential to the mode of appearance of obscure phantasies? I find Husserl’s analysis convincing with regards to the determination of the relation between the first two moments: the protean character of the appearances and their sudden disappearance are strictly interconnected; the protean moment necessarily implies an abrupt disappearance of the appearances. (This interval, this black-out is also highly relevant for our investigation of anxiety, see Chapter 5, Sect. 2). Then, according to Husserl, the appearance reemerges (point 3 above). Is it the same appearance in another guise? Exactly at this point the question about the supposed intermittence of the appearances should be carefully discussed. The intermittence of these appearances seems to me to be in

 “To be sure, a synthesis belonging to a possible intuitive nexus in phantasy and memory corresponds to the synthesis belonging to the nexus of perceptions in which the perceptual being of the object unfolds completely and in all of its aspects. Ordinarily, however, the appearances in phantasy do not succeed one another in this order. The object presents itself at one moment from the front, then suddenly from the rear; on one occasion it presents itself as it appeared at some definite time and then as it appeared at an entirely different time, in which case the two times are widely separated.” (Husserl 2005, p. 71) 72  “Sehen wir von diesen Diskontinuitäten ab, so kommen doch auch andere in Betracht: nämlich das Intermittieren des Bildes. Seine Flüchtigkeit, Verschwinden und Wiederkehren” (Hua XXIII, 62). In this passage Husserl’s account of Phantasie is still based on the concept of image-­ consciousness. Therefore it would be appropriate to substitute the word “image” (“Bild”) with “phantasy appearances” (“Phantasieerscheinungen”). 71

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unsolvable tension with their protean character: how can a radically different appearance be taken as a repetition of the previous one? If the appearances follow one another in a rhapsodic and confused way, how could we legitimately use the concept of intermittence? In other words, the protean character of these appearances does not seem to be compatible with their intermittence: while the protean character refers to the anarchic renewal of radically heterogeneous appearances, intermittence cannot avoid presupposing a continuity and implying the repetition of the same. Nevertheless, it is, perhaps, possible to make these two features compatible if we consider their relation from a different perspective, or better, from two different perspectives: (a) In this tension between the intermittence and the protean character of the appearances of unclear phantasy, one can see a trace of the effort made by intentional consciousness to re-establish a concordance in the rhapsodic vortex of appearances. From this point of view, intermittence does not belong to the originary way of appearing of unclear phantasies in noematic terms, but is rather the result of our expectation of Einstimmigkeit (“basic concordance”): it concerns the noetic side. From this perspective, the feature of intermittence does not belong to the passive synthesis of the series of appearances, but it is related to the attentional act of our intentional consciousness that always looks for continuity even where it cannot be presupposed. I have already cited Husserl’s capital passage according to which, instead of intuition itself, “a rudiment of intuition, a shadow of intuition” operates in obscure phantasies: “In the case of very obscure phantasies, presentification (Vergegenwärtigung) is reduced to a wholly insufficient residue; and if this residue is suppressed entirely, as it is when the phantasms are interrupted, then the determinate but empty intention aimed at the object remains” (Hua XXIII, p.  88/95, trans. modified). Intermittence should be related to this empty intentionality. Even a “shadow of intention” cannot avoid glimpsing minimal forms of consistency among the heterogenous appearances. In other words, the expectation of Einstimmighkeit operates in a retroactive sense: intentional consciousness “discovers” intermittence where it actually “poses” and creates it. (b) A further hypothesis may also be considered to justify intermittence as essential character of obscure phantasies: the various protean appearances may betray a family resemblance of affective nature. In the case of anxiety, a vortex of uncanny (unheimlichen) appearances recurs at regular intervals over time. In this sense it would not be illegitimate to speak of intermittence. If, therefore, from a purely intentional point of view, an incongruity between the feature of intermittence and the protean character might occur, this conflict disappears when the affective dimension is taken into account. The latter consideration invites us to take a closer look at the relations between phantasy and emotional life.

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10  Unclear Phantasy and Affective Life Now that we have pointed out the modification of time-consciousness that is proper to unclear phantasy, we can return to our initial question: what is keeping us from identifying with certainty the quality of the appearances of unclear phantasy? The main problem here is that we cannot treat these appearances in terms of intentional acts. If a coherent object shows itself, we can quite easily identify the quality of our intentional acts: (1) we can determine the manner of givenness, in which a determinate object is intended in terms of perception, memory, or phantasy; (2) we can also be pre-reflexively aware of the specific doxic positionality of the specific act—the intentional object is intended as being real, or as being doubtful, and so on. The evanescence of the appearances of unclear phantasy has an impact on how innertime consciousness operates in them. The surprising emergence of appearances of unclear phantasy is so evanescent that inner consciousness is incapable of determining their doxic positionality. Is this fugitive appearance an expression of a real desire? Or is this flash that suddenly affected me a mere phantasy and nothing else? Is it a rêverie? Is it a dream? Is it real? Or does it want to say something to me? Maybe it was nothing. But how did this nothing (dis)appear? Why did it disturb me? Many questions spontaneously arise: if it is not possible to determine the doxic modality of such appearances, with what legitimacy can they be traced back to the obscure phantasy? On what basis is it accurate to say that they belong to phantasy as such? Or, on the contrary, should we consider their radical evanescence a specific and positive character of obscure phantasies? In the latter case, their evanescence would signify the impossibility of determining their doxic modality. I do not want to address these questions here, but I intend to approach them indirectly, by highlighting two problematic assumptions that guide Husserlian approach to phantasy. I am convinced that Husserl’s meticulous analysis of unclear phantasy becomes very beneficial to our understanding of subjectivity as such, if we abandon two major premises of his line of research: 1. Firstly, Husserl’s investigation on phantasy focuses exclusively upon the question of Vorstellung by highlighting the specific features of this intentional act of presentification (Vergegenwärtigung), as if the relevance of phantasy to subjective life were reducible to representing something absent in the as-if mode. 2. Secondly, Husserl clearly tends to consider phantasy as submitted to our will. He primarily treats the appearances of phantasy as if they were under our control: we can reproduce them, we can imagine whatever we want. Phantasy is an infinite resource of possibilities and our will has an infinite power to manipulate it. We can imagine acting in the most unlikely scenarios (such as being seated in the same train compartment as Herman Leo van Breda while he is carrying three suitcases that weigh more than 80 kg and contain all of Husserl’s unpublished manuscripts inside, heading to the Belgian embassy in Berlin). Needless to say, there is a tension between the protean character of unclear phantasy and this voluntaristic approach to phantasy. Yet, it is not impossible to relieve this tension. One could overcome these difficulties by considering the appearances of

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unclear phantasy as marginal remains of meaningful phenomena: they are only irrelevant sketches preparing the ground for the manifestation of the object of clear phantasy. If one holds to the voluntaristic approach, the protean character of these appearances just shows the limits of evidence. I would like to choose a different path. In my view, Husserl’s investigation of unclear phantasy can substantially contribute to the understanding of our affective life. In other words: the temporalization of unclear phantasy does not only concern us with regard to our limited capability of re-presenting the idle actions of possible centaurs. Rather, the appearances of unclear phantasy are the dimension where our desires, anxieties, and fears form themselves. The monsters that visit children before falling asleep show themselves in the form of unclear phantasies. The appearances of unclear phantasies play a major role in the remorse of a guilty person who has committed something unforgivable and then becomes almost obsessed by the irrevocability of time (Jankélévitch 1982). They are also involved in the selfpunishment of a person suffering from obsessive–compulsive disturbances. In all these cases, it becomes clear how the appearances of phantasy are not submitted to our will. We see, therefore, that the heteronomy of the appearances of phantasy calls for greater emphasis. The appearances of phantasy incarnate our most intimate dimension, one that escapes both our grasp and our control. In phantasy something deeper appears and at the same time vanishes; something essential to our identity, something that we are, but which we cannot grasp. Let us here briefly consider the special case of obsessions with intrusive thoughts that is strictly connected to the sphere of unclear phantasies. These cases manifest the deep anxiety of thinking of something unsayable. These lightning appearances are taken as an expression of what is immonde (“un-worldly”) in Nancy’s sense: what does not belong to the world (Nancy 2007), what should not see the light of day. The mere confused appearance of such unutterable possibilities is experienced as an accusation. In order to assess the legitimacy and consistency of such accusations, one is forced to retrace the terms of the charges which eventually gives form to the very unsayable: one ultimately creates and thus encounters the very ghosts that one wanted to elude. By exploring the accusation, one becomes guilty. In the repetition of these explorations, the concretization and condensation of an initially indeterminately negative feeling takes place. The repetition compulsion sets in. The appearances of unclear phantasy are thus not only unstable and volatile, but also malleable. The evidence of this accusations could be fully manipulated. Eventually, they refer to any object, to any subject, to anything. This is the reason why in obsessive disorders one is able to constantly fabricate evidence against oneself, since there is no clear constitution of any intentional object in the tumultuous life of unclear phantasy. At this point it is also relevant to consider the psychoanalytical notion of phantasm. Originally repressed wishes are deformed in Phantasie. This deformation makes an objective concealment possible, while also ensuring an economically important expression of the repressed desires. Through phantasms, repressed desires are transformed in such a way as to allow the ego to avoid direct confrontation with

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his/her drives.73 With regard to this indirect self-manifestation of the subject, it is also appropriate to mention the major contribution of Pontalis and Laplanche’s theory of phantasm as scene. According to Laplanche and Pontalis, the phantasy object should not be interpreted as a mere hallucinatory substitute for the satisfaction of drives. The phantasized scene is not simply an object of desire. Rather, it is to be regarded as a kind of incarnation of the multi-layered life of the subject: In phantasy, the subject does not pursue the object of desire or its sign: he appears caught up himself in the sequences of images. He forms no representation of the desired object, but is himself represented as participating in the scene although, in the earliest form of phantasy, he cannot be assigned any fixed place in it […]. As a result, the subject, although always present in the phantasy, may be so in a desubjectivised form—that is to say, in the very syntax of the sequence in question (Laplanche-Pontalis 1968, p. 11).

Accordingly, the relationship between phantasy and desire is very intricate. Still, we may discern three pivotal characteristics: 1. Phantasms are not simply imaginary objects understood as the target or aim of drives and desires. They are complex “scripts” of organized scenes; scenes that perform, express and manifest a dramatization of our affective life. These dramatizations mostly take a visual form (Laplanche and Pontalis 1973, p. 317). 2. The subject is always present in this sequence of scenes. The subject usually takes on different roles, appearances, and functions in these scenes. He/she cannot be identified with a single ‘character’ appearing in it. As we have already seen, it is also not appropriate to focus exclusively on the different ‘actors’ or voices present in the phantasy scene. The subject also manifests itself in the syntax of the phantasmatic ‘mise-en-scène’ of desire. 3. If we assume that desire is always woven into phantasies, residing there, then phantasy formations become also a place of defense mechanisms (such as ­negation and projection). Instances of prohibition are always present in phantasies. The scenes are therefore dramatization of desires and prohibitions. To conclude: if we recall the essential traits of the appearances of unclear phantasies (protean form, abruptness, and intermittence), unclear phantasies cannot be considered quasi-perceptions of a fictional object, since no intentional object constitutes itself in this confused dimension. They do not reproduce the modification of any intentional act, or of any possible perception in the as-if mode. Husserl’s analysis of unclear phantasy could contribute significantly to the understanding of subjectivity in a very different framework: when we consider unclear phantasies as inchoate expressions of our challenging affective life. I will illustrate the relevance of the study of obscure phantasies for affective life through a plain example from daily life: I will analyze the way in which a young scholar is anxious about the negative outcome of a talk at an international conference. My attention will here be primarily devoted to the specific alteration of their doxic modality in his experience. But

 Accordingly, phantasies mediate all three psychical systems (the conscious, preconscious and unconscious).

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before starting this analysis, I would like to summarize the results concerning the relation between phenomenology and psychoanalysis in order to emphasize their complementarity and mutual enlightenment. I hope that the present analysis demonstrates the seminal relevance of Husserl’s research on obscure phantasies showing that in these a different temporality and “Being-in-the-as-if-world” comes to the fore. At the same time, an intentional investigation of phantasies exclusively focusing on the aspect of presentification is not satisfactory, because it tends to overlook the role of Phantasie in subjective life—treating it, instead, as if it were confined to the representation of objects in the “as-if” mode. On the contrary, obscure phantasies shape our desires, our anxieties and our hopes, as rightly emphasized within the psychoanalytical tradition. However, this tradition is unable to describe how we relate to future threats in the form of obscure phantasy, since it overlooks a meticulous analysis of the intentional aspect of this relation. As we will see in the next sections, psychoanalysis cannot grasp the “quasi-intentional” character of anxiety. Only through a research capable of integrating psychoanalysis and phenomenology does it become possible to do justice to the complexity of the phenomenon of imaginative anticipation that is essential for understanding the phenomenon of anxiety.

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Schmitt, Carl. 1938. Der Leviathan in der Staatslehre des Thomas Hobbes.. Sinn und Fehlschlag eines politischen Symbols. English edition: Carl Schmitt. 1996. The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol. (George D. Schwab & Erna Hilfstein, trans.) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Schütz, Alfred. 1932. Der Sinnhafte Aufbau der Sozialen Welt: Eine Einleitung in die Verstehende Soziologie. Wien: Springer. Seneca, Lucius Anneus. 1996. In Epistulae Morales, ed. Richard Mott Gummere, Thomas Corcoran, and Frank Justus Miller. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Severi, Carlo. 2014. Transmutating being: A proposal for an anthropology of thought. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4 (2): 41–71. Shum, Peter. 2015. The Evolution and Implications of Husserl’s Account of the Imagination. Husserl Studies 31: 213–236. Sokolowski, Robert. 2015. Hobbes and Husserl. In Phenomenology in a New Key: Between Analysis and History. Nicolas de Warren & Jeffrey Bloechl (eds.). Heidelberg: Springer Verlag. Sorgi, Giuseppe. 1996. Quale Hobbes? Dalla paura alla rappresentanza. Edizioni Franco Angeli: Milano. Taubes, Jacob. 2003. Die politische Theologie des Paulus, ed. Aleida Assman. München: Fink. Viveiros de Castro, Edoardo. 2014. Cannibal Metaphysics. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing. Volonté, Paolo. 1997. Husserls Phänomenologie der Imagination. Freiburg: Alber. White, Kevin. 1985. The Meaning of Phantasia In Aristotle’s De Anima. III, 3-8’. Dialogue 24: 483–505. Zahavi, Dan. 2003. Husserl’s Phenomenology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Chapter 5

Anxiety: A Phenomenological Investigation

1  T  rait of Anxiety: Its Quasi-Intentional Imaginative Anticipation 1.1  Supplementary Possibilities “Anxiety is the first reflex of possibility, a look and yet a terrible spell” (Kierkegaard 1976, p. 102). I do not intend to offer a faithful interpretation of this sentence in the context of Kierkegaard’s account of anxiety. Instead, it will serve as an insight into the complexity of anxiety from a phenomenological perspective. Anxiety is the first reflex of (and the first response to) possibility (and impossibility): anxiety should not be considered a blind affect, but rather is to be understood as an affective response that arises from the projection of confused and vague possibilities. This first response also implies hesitation involving a sense of impossibility: “I unconditionally want to become myself—therefore, I cannot become myself.” “I will be powerless—therefore, I am already powerless.” In anxiety, there is always a sense of inevitable impossibility (“therefore” signalizes this aspect in the previous sentences). The equivocation and the proliferation of words such as possibility and impossibility, power and powerlessness, and the very use of verbs such as “I can” or “I cannot,” are also inevitable in an investigation of anxiety and make it difficult, if not ambiguous and confusing. And yet, ambiguity and confusion are inherent in the phenomenon itself. In anxiety, there is a conflation of different aspects: the vague anticipation of a negative event, the shadowy projection both of different scenarios and of my (inadequate) answers to these scenarios, the stressful urge to make a choice along with the vivid impression of not being able to choose now, helplessness accompanied by the inevitability of imminent evil, a proleptical feeling of guilt for my future failure, and so on. Anxiety is a look. As already emphasized in the Introduction (Sect. 1.4 of this chapter), Goldstein speaks of anxiety in terms of catastrophic behavior. In anxiety, no perception of a consistent and coherent world occurs. The relation between subjectivity and the © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Micali, Phenomenology of Anxiety, Phaenomenologica 235, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89018-6_5

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surrounding world undergoes a profound transformation: “The ‘catastrophic’ reactions, on the other hand, prove themselves to be not only ‘inadequate’ but also disordered, inconstant, inconsistent, and embedded in physical and mental shock. In these situations, the individual feels himself unfree, buffeted, and vacillating. He experiences a shock affecting not only his own person, but the surrounding world as well. He is in that condition that we usually call anxiety”1 (Goldstein 1995, p. 49, trans. modified). Anxiety is indeed a look: it concerns our immediate relation to the world. But with regard to this “look,” it is necessary to underline both its deforming, exaggerating tendency and the moment of blindness. (The latter may sometimes be so transient that it remains unnoticed, like a blink of an eye). From a systematic point of view, it is important to situate anxiety between perception, imagination, and expectation (in the form of proleptical self-projections in relation to imagined circumstances). Anxiety creeps between these three dimensions and connects them. The notion that best succeeds in expressing this relation is “imaginative anticipation” (see Sect. 1.2 of this chapter). Anxiety is a spell. Anxiety entails something of a hypnotic moment. It is very difficult not to slip into its spiral when it appeals to us. It is not by chance that with regard to the notion of the “generality of evil,” Schelling compares anxiety to sirens’ melodies (Schelling 1984, p. 65, see Sect. 4.2 of this chapter). Anxiety is a spell that absorbs us and detaches us from common sense—from our immediate adherence to the shared life-­world—letting us fall into the vortex of phantastic (im) possibilities. We have a natural tendency to follow anxiety’s seducing melody. We fear anxiety and yet we are attracted by it. In Kierkegaard’s words, “when we consider the dialectical determinations of anxiety, it appears that exactly these have psychological ambiguity. Anxiety is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy” (Kierkegaard 1980a, p. 54). In anxiety, what distresses us is not only the imminent threat but also the possible consequences that will follow the irruption of the negative. Precisely in this sense Tillich reformulates the relation between anxiety and fear: anxiety does not relate to imminent danger, but anticipates (and multiplies) the catastrophic consequences that will proceed from this negative event taking place: Fear and anxiety are distinguished but not separated. They are immanent within each other: The sting of fear is anxiety, and anxiety strives toward fear. Fear is being afraid of something, a pain, the rejection by a person or a group, the loss of something or somebody, the moment of dying. But in the anticipation of the threat originating in these things, it is not the negativity itself which they will bring upon the subject that is frightening but the anxiety about the possible implications of this negativity. (Tillich 1952, p. 32)

Anxiety proleptically “explores” the consequences of the worse to come. Certainly, it is difficult to thoroughly describe anxiety’s proleptic trait from a phenomenological perspective. I will address the complex relation between imagination and anticipation in order to tackle this problem. For this purpose, I will introduce the notion of quasi-intentionality. For the moment, I will limit myself and 1  “Die katastrophalen Reaktionen erweisen sich dem gegenüber nicht nur als “unrichtig”, sondern als ungeordnet, wechselnd, widerspruchsvoll, eingebettet in Erscheinungen körperlicher und seelischer Erschütterung. Der Kranke erlebt sich in diesen Situationen unfrei, hin und her gerissen, schwankend, er erlebt eine Erschütterung der Welt um sich wie seiner eigenen Person. Er befindet sich in einem Zustand, den wir gewöhnlich als Angst bezeichnen.” (Goldstein 1934, p. 49)

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focus on highlighting the tension between two different features of anxiety: (1) everything appears to be confused and indeterminate; anything negative can assail us. In other words, there is a threatening lack of determination from the point of view of content; (2) it is as if we experience the anticipation of the indeterminate negative event with apodictic certainty—as if we were sure that it will happen. It is almost as if one were looking at the impending danger from a post-festum perspective, as if it had already occurred.2 This combination of certainty with the lack of determination concerning the content is a puzzling characteristic of anxiety.

1.2  Imaginative Anticipation: The Doxic Modality of Anxiety How should we think of the relation between future situations and our present anticipation of them? With what legitimacy can we assume that what is now anticipated in anxiety is identical to what will happen in our intersubjectively shared life-world in the future? Why do we assume that “the same thing” occurs in the two scenes? And how does this same event show itself in actual anxious anticipation? How will it appear in future lived experience? In anxiety, the limit between the anticipated perceptual experience of the impending future and the phantasies projected onto it becomes blurred. The hypertrophy of the obscure phantasy is best understood not as a suspension of symbolic activities (Blumenberg 1979/1985), but as a “coherent deformation” of them. In everyday life, we do not relate ourselves to an indeterminate future as though it were an empty horizon in which anything and everything may arbitrarily occur. The future is predelineated on the basis of sedimented experiences. Nevertheless, it will always remain, to a certain extent, unpredictable. It will (to a greater or lesser extent) surprise us. Our relation to the future is inevitably multifaceted and varies considerably between specific affective constellations (such as hope or despair). Moreover, the future scene can be grasped from different temporal perspectives (Theunissen 1991b): it suffices to think of the future perfect tense with which we relate to a present (or to a forthcoming) situation as having already occurred at a particular point in the future. Surely, one of the most important forms of our relation to the future is that of pre-­ occupation. As already emphasized, this word must be understood literally (see Chapter 4, Sect. 5). We are now already pre-occupied with what is going to happen. We are now pre-occupied with our impending tasks, interests, and needs. All interests, needs, and tasks point to what is not yet present. It is crucial to stress that the future situation is already experienced as real. Following Husserl, Merleau-Ponty strongly insists on the reality of the future. Time is singular because the dimensions of the future, the present, and the past refer to each other: There is a temporal style of the world, and time remains the same because the past is a former future and a recent present, the present an impending past and a recent future, the future, 2  In his Écrits de psychopathologie phénoménologique, Kimura uses the expression “post-festum” for defining the specific temporaliazion of depression (Kimura 1992). I use it in more general terms, while addressing the future event as past. This perspective finds its expression in the future perfect: one projects oneself forward in a future situation, addressing from “there” a forthcoming event that will then already be completed.

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finally, a present and even a past to come; that is, because each dimension of time is treated or aimed at as something other than itself (…).3 (Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. 422, trans. modified)

It is my intention to deepen the understanding of the intricate connection between anticipation and phantasy in anxiety by examining a specific scenario. A PhD student has three months left to write his first public lecture for an international conference at the University of Berlin. His talk will take place in front of a crowded audience including undisputed scientific authorities in his area of research. Obviously, the student cannot predict how his lecture will be received: any attempt to intuitively anticipate what is going to happen is doomed to fail. His relation to the future event takes the immediate shape of an urgent need to write, in order to be as well prepared as possible by the given date. This future event is already perceived by the student as real. He feels this event to be so real that in some ways it already overwhelms him. He cannot stop thinking about it. Negative thoughts often arise— he anxiously feels that he will perform poorly. Obviously, the student may even take the decision not to participate at the conference, but he knows in his heart that this is a great opportunity for him and, besides, he knows that, having already made the commitment, he will keep his word: he will be there. His relation to the future is inhabited by the certainty that that particular event (his talk) will take place. As already mentioned, the PhD student is often tormented by anxiety. He is afraid that he will fail. With regular intermittence, this feeling of inadequacy is accompanied by the sudden explosion of negative, confused phantasies. For example, the student imagines that a highly respected professor will unequivocally highlight the weak point of his line of argumentation. After this first very critical comment, other colleagues will feel permitted to forego any form of academic politeness: his talk will then be inexorably demolished. The student already anticipates his future reaction to the negative scenario: at first, he will try to reply to their objections, then he will be progressively so overwhelmed that he will limit himself to mumbling disconnected words. Here, anxiety becomes more and more invasive. Such a minor episode of anxiety already reveals its autoimmune logic: on the one hand, in anxiety, one attempts to anticipate the future situation in order to escape the possible forthcoming dangers. On the other hand, the anticipation of the negative scenarios irresistibly tends to unfold itself in a very different direction, that is, it is guided by the expectation that anything and everything (negative) may happen. Still, it is interesting to observe that the doxic modality has not changed: the negative phantasies retain the modality of reality involved in the anticipation of the future. Meanwhile, the phantasy appearances of the threatening future situation are gradually becoming more and more indeterminate. If the future scene was initially relatively coherent, it becomes more unstable and obscure over time. Here we are dealing with a hybrid form of presentification (Vergegenwärtigung) that entails an interplay between anticipation and clear phantasy, where a coherent intentional object constitutes itself, and obscure phantasy, in which stricto sensu no intentional object appears. As discussed in the previous sections, the appearances of obscure phantasy have a protean and 3  “Il y a un style temporel du monde et le temps demeure le même parce que le passé est un ancien avenir et un présent récent, le présent un passé prochain et un avenir récent, l’avenir enfin un présent et même un passé à venir, c’est-à-dire parce que chaque dimension du temps est traitée ou visée comme autre chose qu’elle-même (…).” (Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. 482)

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over-determined nature: they suddenly emerge and then disappear into nothingness. They “re-appear” in other forms and fashions. Anxiety’s specters manifest themselves primarily in the form of appearances of obscure phantasies. If anxiety increases, the rhythm of the emergence of obscure phantasies becomes progressively more compulsive and the future scene appears more chaotic. Given this intertwining between clear phantasy and obscure phantasy, it is legitimate to use the notion of ‘quasi-intentionality’ for the threatening appearances arising from anxiety. Moreover, it is noteworthy that not only does the overdetermined phantasy appearances provoke anxiety, but the intermittent rhythm of their emergence enhances it. Intermittence as such is threatening: at the very moment that nothing intentionally constituted arises, the most negative possibilities may be feared and projected. Thus, darkness and silence are the best friends of anxiety. One must always bear in mind that all these elusive possibilities appear in the temporal dimension of the future. The ambiguous character of anxiety also consists in this: the proliferation of all the most negative possibilities is anchored to a future scene posited as real. In this respect, one easily understands why anxiety is characterized by a sense of ontological certainty. The certainty of anxiety is parasitic on the doxic modality of the anticipation of the future. As already indicated, we are not blind in anxiety. Rather, one sees one’s own specter through and in it. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid any attempt at understanding this phenomenon according to a rigid dichotomy whereby the reference to an object is either absent or present in anxiety. Such a dichotomy misunderstands how what provokes anxiety forms itself: anxiety unfolds itself in a specific form of quasi-intentionality that emerges through the complex relation between (clear and obscure) phantasies and the anticipation of the future.

1.3  T  he Ghosts of Anxiety: The Knight, Death, the Devil (and the Dog) Anxiety moves among ghosts that it itself has produced. Some of these ghosts occupy a privileged position. The negative (im)possibilities inherent in anxiety proceed along two main axes: 1. On the one hand, one could speak of an evenemential anxiety that relates to negative events that are going to happen, independent of our will, and already now overwhelm us. Death is probably the eminent paradigm of such evenemential anxiety. 2. On the other hand, there is an anxiety oriented towards the projections of uncanny (unheimlichen) possibilities of doing what is traditionally called evil. These possibilities negate and compromise one’s own symbolic identity. They make me lose my face, in violating Other’s face: anxiety before evil, anxiety before the possibility of finding oneself unrecognizable before oneself. This anxiety may easily turn into a sense of guilt for already being disfigured and defaced by having crossed a line through the “imaginative” anticipation of these possibilities. If death represents a paradigmatic expression of the first orientation of anxiety, the devil may be taken as embodiment of this second orientation. In both of these cases (evenemential anxiety and anxiety concerning evil self-projections) we are haunted by something that cannot find any correspondence in our perceptual consciousness.

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Consider the controlled figuration of Dürer’s engraving, Der Ritter, der Tod und der Teufel (“Knight, Death, and the Devil”), which Vasari judges as one of the “printed papers so excellent that one cannot do better” (“carte stampate tanto eccellenti, che non si può far meglio”) (Vasari 1878-1882, vol. V, p. 408). If there is little doubt about who the two uncanny phantoms are (the devil and the death), the debate regarding the identity of the knight is almost interminable. Heller identifies the knight as Franz von Sickingen, often called the “Last Knight” (der letzte Ritter) who, close to the positions of Ulrich von Hutten, fought in defence of the Reformation and died as a result of wounds suffered during one of the first military battles where artillery was extensively used (von Tromlitz 1858, p. 163). The interpretation of the knight’s identity largely depends on determining the context in which Dürer’s work is to be inserted. According to Liepmaan’s reading, Knight, Death and the Devil cannot be separated from other two master engravings: Der heilige Hieronymus im Gehäus (Saint Jerome in His Study) and Melencolia I. These three works exemplify the three categories of Christian virtues articulated in scholastic philosophy: Der Ritter, der Tod und der Teufel concerns the moral virtues, Saint Jerome in His Study the theological virtues, and Melencolia I the intellectual virtues. Thausing instead believes that Der Ritter, der Tod und der Teufel should be interpreted in relation to the cycle of the four temperaments. According to his reading, the letter S visible in the engraving indicates the sanguine character, as opposed to the melancholic character depicted in the work with that name. Following Weber, Panofsky underscores the political-religious nature of Dürer’s engraving: he associates the knight with Erasmus, who was able to reconcile Christianity with Humanism.4 According to Panofsky, Dürer’s engraving was strongly influenced by a specific passage in Erasmus’s Enchiridion: This book could not supply an artist with suggestions for iconographical details. But it could reveal to him the idea of a Christian faith so virile, clear, serene and strong that the dangers and temptations of the world simply cease to be real: “In order that you may not be deterred from the path of virtue because it seems rough and dreary, because you may have to renounce the comforts of the world, and because you must constantly fight three unfair enemies, the flesh, the devil and the world, this third rule shall be proposed to you: All those spooks and phantoms [terricula et phantasmata] which come upon you as in the very gorges of Hades must be deemed for nought after the example of Virgil’s Aeneas.” This is precisely what Dürer expressed in his engraving: unlike all other representations of similar subjects, the enemies of man do not appear to be real. They are not foes to be conquered but, indeed, “spooks and phantoms” to be ignored. The Rider passes them as though they were not there and quietly pursues his course, “fixing his eyes steadily and intensely on the thing itself,” to quote Erasmus again. (Panofsky 1943, p. 152)

 “Grieved and incensed by the unfounded rumors of Luther’s assassination, Dürer jotted down, amidst the records of his daily work and expenses, a magnificent outburst against the Papists which culminates in a passionate appeal to Erasmus of Rotterdam: ‘O Erasme Roderodame, where wilt thou take thy stand’? Look, of what avail is the unjust tyranny of worldly might and the powers of darkness’? Hark, thou Knight of Christ [du Ritter Christi], ride forth at the side of Christ our Lord, protect the truth, obtain the crown of the Martyrs.” No doubt the phrase “du Ritter Christi” alludes to Erasmus’s youthful treatise Enchiridion militis Christiani (“Handbookof the Christian Soldier”) which had been composed in 1501 and was first published in 1504. But that Dürer promoted the Erasmian “soldier” (miles, not eques) to a “knight” riding forth on horseback shows that his mind involuntarily associated him with the hero of his own engraving.” (Panofsky 1943, p. 152) 4

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Knight, Death and the Devil Albrecht Dürer Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Panofsky convincingly highlights both the horse’s expression of impassibility and the severe concentration of the knight’s gaze.5 As is well-known, “what you pay 5  Assuming that the study of the history of reception of major works of art may provide a privileged access to the understanding of the history of a specific culture, Dürer’s Knight, Death and the Devil would certainly be one of the works to be considered for “recapitulating” German culture. Here, it

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attention to grows.” The knight ignores his ghosts, determinedly turned towards his goals.6 Only one detail, which seems to me to be decisive, escapes Panofsky’s analysis: the dog runs like hell (note the position of the front legs).7 And perhaps this very dog puts us on the trail of the ontological ambiguity of anxiety. The dog plays an important role in the dramaturgy of Dürer’s engraving because it interrupts its solemnly static atmosphere. The dog runs away, as if it perceives and recognizes the “actuality” of the two spectral “presences.” These cannot then be dismissed as mere nullities. Through the dog’s “apprehension,” the engraving not only attains a very different dynamism and plasticity,8 but the very boundaries between perception, phantasy, and anticipation take on new meaning. It is as if the dog perceives the ghosts of his master’s anxiety and exactly for this reason runs away (certainly, dogs share our world in their own way). Anxiety nestles in the interlude between protentions—which also open the originary intersubjectively shared world to us—and the projections of our own phantasies, scruples, obsessions. Sometimes it is possible that those close to us are able to cohabit this interval in which we encounter our past and future ghosts.

is sufficient to mention two other decisive moments in which this work “emerges” in German history, if we leave aside Panofsky’s above mentioned interpretation which considers Dürer’s work as a statement concerning the Reformation. In 1870 Fredrich Nietzsche gave this work to Wagner as a gift. In 1933 the mayor of Nuremberg offered it as a gift to Hitler, saying that he was “the knight without fear and without shame.” In relation to the phenomenological tradition, it is noteworthy that Husserl himself takes the attitude of the knight as a model to address his exorbitant theoretical difficulties. In the famous Appendix IX of Volume XXIV, Husserl states that the realization of his project of a universal critique of reason accompanied by concrete analyses of the different phenomena of perception, of phantasy, etc., requires not only divine help, but also demands a resolute attitude of renunciation toward anything that might impede his unconditional commitment to a pure quest without which his life would be death: “Pure spirit, pure inner life, breathing in the problems and being purely devoted to them and only to them, that is the hope of my future. If this does not succeed, then I may only live a life which is rather a death. I can still hope. But the hour has struck in which I must make the decision. Not the mere ‘will’ as a one-time decision is enough. It requires inner renewal or inner purification and firmness. Against all externals, against all temptations of Adam I must arm myself with ninefold brass. I must go my way as surely, as firmly determined and as seriously as Dürer’s knight in spite of death and devil. Ah, life has been serious enough for me. The cheerfulness of the sensual enjoyment of life has become foreign to me and must remain foreign to me. I must not be passive (and enjoyment is passivity), I must live in work, struggle, in passionately serious struggle for the wreath of truth. There will be no lack of serenity: serene sky above me, if I go on bravely and safely, as over Dürer’s knight! And God be with me as with him, even though we are all sinners” (Hua XXIV, p. 447) (see Hart 1992, pp. 50-51). 6  It is also important to emphasize the role of the helmet which helps the Knight to ignore the Death and the Devil. 7  Panofksy does not find any difference in the attitude between the knight, the horse and the dog: “The Rider, on the other hand, is accompanied by a handsome, long-haired retriever whose presence completes the allegory. As the armored man personifies Christian faith, so the eager and quick-scented dog denotes three less fundamental yet no less necessary virtues: untiring zeal, learning and truthful reasoning” (Panofsky 1943, p. 153). Focusing exclusively on the physiognomy of the characters, Panofsky overlooks the great significance of the dynamic elements in Dürer’s engraving Knight, Death and the Devil. 8  The dynamism is also favored by the contrast between the dog and the lizard: they proceed in opposed directions.

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Is it possible to go beyond the distinction between an evenemential anxiety and anxiety before evil? The root of both forms of anxiety may reside in one’s pre-­ occupation with being exposed to what is literally Unvordenkliches—it may be related to that dimension that Henri Maldiney and Marc Richir have defined as transpassibility (Maldiney 1991; Richir 1992): we are pre-occupied by events that are so destabilizing that they cannot be assumed by us in our present condition. In order to “assume” these events, we will be forced to transform ourselves, and, once transformed, we will no longer be able to recognize ourselves: we will be beyond ourselves in a sense that is now still completely undetermined and unforeseeable. Dazzled by confused negative (im)possibilities, we let ourselves be swallowed by a future already decided. Another dog will allow us to deepen our understanding of anxiety.

1.4  Approaching the (Always Postponed) Catastrophe Imagine standing before a fascinating country house situated in the western suburbs of Madrid, more precisely, in the municipality of Carabanchel. Imagine standing before this house bearing the strange name of “Quinta del Sordo” (Villa of the Deaf) on September 17, 1823.9 Now, you see a 77-year-old man waiting for his grandson called Marianito to give him the keys to his house. The old man decided to leave Madrid and to move to France. Different reasons contributed to his decisions—one of them was surely the liberal political orientation both of him and of his partner, 42 years his junior. If you had entered that house before Marianito, you would have been astonished to see fourteen paintings on the walls of both the ground floor and the top floor, which accommodated eight of them. These paintings have a private value that has no equal in the entire history of Western art.10 Several scholars believe that the old man painted them for therapeutic purposes. Afflicted by political events and having isolated himself due to a serious illness, he took refuge in intense and solitary artistic activity. After that day (17 September 1823), he never returned to Quinta del Sordo. Thus he would never see his works again, as if those paintings had already fulfilled their function. Each painting was arranged according to a certain order. The scenes portrayed are projections of evil and embodies ghosts both of anxiety and horror. The themes vary from the cannibal act of Saturn to the witches’ sabbath. The last painting, that is situated at the end of the cycle and that theoretically should represent its climax, is from a dramaturgical point of view the most evasive—it does not portray any striking situation: a dog, drowning perhaps, against a background of agony.

 The man had purchased the house in 1819 while already suffering from significant health problems, including deafness. 10  “It is true that many subsequent artists painted or drew or carved works of art that they intended to be enjoyed and understood only by themselves. But never before and never since, as far as we know, has a major, ambitious cycle of paintings been painted with the intention of keeping the pictures an entirely private affair” (Licht 1982, p. 159). The very recourse to the fresco unmistakably shows the painter’s intention. Antonio Saura rightly states that it is precisely the social uselessness that gives these works their liberating aura (Saura 1992, p. 43). It is also interesting to note that Goya’s initially painted bucolics subjects in the main hall (Pérez Sánchez 1989). In a later phase he covered them with the works of the cycle known to us. 9

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The Drowning Dog Francisco Goya Copyright: © Museo Nacional del Prado

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With this painting, Goya ends his cycle. It is plausible to think that the production of El perro helped him to allay the urge for activity “that prodded him in his isolation” (Saura 1992, p. 47). The alteration of spatiality involved in El perro has been the object of thorough investigation: the ocher yellow overflows, reabsorbing all the usual limits between sky, shore, sand, and (perhaps) sea. Everything becomes indistinct, except for an impassable embankment that condemns the dog to the prolongation of the waiting condition. The proportions of the painting and, above all, the verticality of the yellow ocher background imposing itself on the dog play a key role. Todorov writes in this regard: The last panel, to the right of the door on the second floor, is the most curious and has no equivalent in the rest of the painter’s work, it is The Dog (El perro) (GW 1621, Illustration 23). It is so singular that it was possible to wonder if it was not a fragment of a larger image, but a meticulous examination of the painting revealed no other trace. Not only is the dog reduced to its head, but it occupies a very small part of the surface, which is covered with paint but does not represent anything. The dog looks at someone or something but we cannot know what, and this impossibility to make sense of the image becomes the symbol of its emptiness. Any idea of pictorial space is abolished here and at the same time any idea of humanity. This is the extreme point reached by Goya in his exploration of the possibilities of painting; it is also the last image we see in his house (if we assume that that of Leocadia is the first).11 (Todorov 2011, pp. 247-8)

Todorov’s analysis of El perro is accurate with the exception of one essential point and this point concerns the humanity. To say that any idea of humanity is abolished in this work is simply misleading. Rightly, much emphasis has been placed on the humanity of the dog and his eyes, from which unmistakable torment emanates. According to Ceronetti, “this one from La Quinta is not a dog, it’s a vision of the human condition. So I did not joke with that dog, whose tail no one will ever see”12 (Ceronetti 2005, p.  132). Ceronetti continues: “Go to the Prado, learn that that eye is your eye, you grabbling (in the dark) and lost people (...). How could I forget that dog’s eye, so small in the great fury of the Black Paintings? It is my eye”13 (Ceronetti 2005, p.  132). Pierre Gassier pointed out the audacity of Goya’s subject: “through the head of a dog that emerges in a dead landscape, Goya expresses the intensity of a drama that overcoming the irrational is transformed into

 “Le dernier panneau, à droite de la porte au premier étage, est les plus étrange et sans équivalent dans le reste de l’œuvre du peintre, c’est Le Chien. Il est si singulière qui on a pu se demander s’il ne s’agissait pas d’un fragment d’une image plus grande; mais l’examen minutieux du tableau n’a révélé aucune autre trace. Non seulement le chien est réduit à sa seule tête, mais il occupe une toute petite partie de la surface, laquelle est couverte de peinture mais ne représente rien. Le chien regarde quelqu’un ou quelque chose mais nous ne pouvons savoir quoi, et cette impossibilité de donner un sens à l’image devient le symbole de sa vacuité. Toute idée d’espace pictural est abolie ici, et en même temps toute idée d’humanité. C’est le point extrême atteint par Goya dans son exploration des possibilités de la peinture; c’est aussi la dernière image qu’on voit dans sa maison (si l’on postule que celle de Leocadia en est la première).” (Todorov 2011, pp. 247-8) 12  “[...] questo della Quinta non è un cane, è una visione della condizione umana. Perciò non ho scherzato con quel cane, di cui nessuno vedrà mai la coda.” (Ceronetti 2005, p. 132) 13  “Andate al Prado, imparate che quell’occhio è il vostro occhio di brancicanti e di sperduti (…). Come potrei dimenticarmi di quell’occhio di cane, così piccolo nel grande furore delle Pitture Nere? È il mio.” (Ceronetti 2005, p. 132) 11

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something human” (Gassier 1983, p. 143). The dog’s face soberly expresses a range of antithetical feelings: a sense of abandonment, a will to live, and an indefinite suspension. The dog is exhausted but still has time, that is, he awaits the (his) end. The undifferentiated yellow ocher background seems to be an active power that oppresses the dog. The painting expresses a sense of hopeless expectation. Your fate has already been decided but your story is not over: you feel that there is still time, an indefinite and unreal time. The painting conveys the impression of a time dilation in which the dog will be rejected by the shore and sink to the bottom. It is as if the painting’s temporality enacts the approximation of a catastrophe that is continually renewed because at every moment it is postponed. Anxiety has exactly this structure: anticipating the end, experiencing it as irrevocable, and then always postponing its imminent arrival. It cannot be ruled out that the humanity of Goya’s dog is related to his anguished gaze, that is to say, to the prolepsis of catastrophe assumed as having already taken place and yet always postponed.

2  Trait of Anxiety: Its Negative Inspiration 2.1  On Adam Let us recommence from the very beginning, namely from Adam. The novelist Friedrich Hebbel writes a lapidary sentence in his diary in 1846: “The first human could have also committed suicide out of fear of death” (Hebbel 2017, p. 104). 14 Adam could have killed himself, gripped with anxiety, once he was told by God that he was mortal. Even before we distinctively understand its meaning, Hebbel’s phrase disconcerts us. Further examination increases, rather than diminishing, its paradoxical character. Hebbel’s sentence is evidently paradoxical when we consider Adam’s condition: how could Adam understand the meaning of his mortality if, stricto sensu, for him (and most importantly for anyone else) death was not yet a reality? How could Adam possibly perform an act which implies an understanding of what is still radically unknown to him, for the quite compelling reason that the phenomenon in question—‘death’—did not exist at all? An attempt to answer this question can be found in Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety. Adam was not able to understand God’s prohibition against eating from the tree of knowledge. How can one really grasp a prohibition as such without already knowing the difference between good and evil? Although it was not comprehended, the prohibition may still have had a profound impact on Adam: in fact, it could awaken anxiety in him; it “oriented” his affective condition in a very specific direction. Kierkegaard uses a phenomenologically precise expression here: anxiety has almost “caught its first prey;” the indeterminate nothingness of anxiety  “Der erste Mensch hätte aus Furcht vor dem Tode auch einen Selbstmord begehen können” (Hebbel 2017, p. 104). I am obviously aware that Hebbel uses the term Furcht (fear) and not Angst (anxiety) here. It is necessary to recall that in the German language Angst and Furcht are used interchangeably in daily life (Bergenholtz 1980).

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pours into that enigmatic word.15 The incomprehensible word generates a distressing sense of freedom’s possibility. The possibility of freedom should be understood as a sense of urgent “agency.” Due to a lack of knowledge, the sense of agency remains fully indeterminate. Therefore, it shows itself as anxiety: The prohibition induces in him [Adam] anxiety, for the prohibition awakens in him freedom’s possibility. What passed by innocence as the nothing of anxiety has now entered into Adam, and here again it is a nothing—the anxious possibility of being able. He has no conception of what he is able to do; otherwise—and this is what usually happens—that which comes later, the difference between good and evil, would have to be presupposed. Only the possibility of being able is present as a higher form of ignorance, as a higher expression of anxiety, because in a higher sense it both is and is not, because in a higher sense he both loves it and flees from it. (Kierkegaard 1980, pp. 44–45)

After having addressed the question about the prohibition, Kierkegaard deals with the problem of punishment: prohibition is followed by condemnation. Kierkegaard contends that Adam was also not able to understand God’s words: “You shall certainly die.” However, Adam may have been caught by the idea of something terrible while listening to God’s pronouncement of punishment: After the word of prohibition follows the word of judgment: ‘You shall certainly die.’ Naturally, Adam does not know what it means to die. On the other hand, there is nothing to prevent him from having acquired a notion of the terrifying, for even animals can understand the mimic expression and movement in the voice of a speaker without understanding the word. (Kierkegaard 1980, p. 45)

Kierkegaard’s insightful interpretation suggests that it is not necessary to understand the language to fall prey to anxiety. The onset of anxiety is not necessarily connected with the understanding of verbal communication. Kierkegaard’s remark is certainly instructive, but it does not help us to fully understand Hebbel’s sentence, since it does not explain why Adam may have committed suicide instead of getting lost in free-floating anxiety. Blumenberg’s reading of Hebbel’s lapidary sentence helps us shed light on its paradoxical character. With his typical conceptual acumen, Blumenberg states that what we do not understand provokes unpredicted and unpredictable behaviors: “This is a paradox: attempting to avoid the threat of mortality, revealed by not knowing, by means of an action whose consequences are equally unknown”16 (Blumenberg 2006, p. 54). An unknown and threatening situation generates an unknown and unpredictable behavior in us. Blumenberg’s remark certainly points in the right direction. Yet it, too, is not entirely satisfactory: in his reading as well, the relation between the unknown situation and the corresponding unknown behavior remains too indeterminate.

 “Innocence still is, but only a word is required and then ignorance is concentrated. Innocence naturally cannot understand this word, but at that moment anxiety has, as it were, caught its first prey. Instead of nothing, it now has an enigmatic word. When it is stated in Genesis that God said to Adam, ‘Only from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you must not eat,’ it follows as a matter of course that Adam really has not understood this word, for how could he understand the difference between good and evil when this distinction would follow as a consequence of the enjoyment of the fruit?” (Kierkegaard 1980a, p. 44) 16  “Das ist ein Paradox: aus dem Nichtwissen, was die drohende Sterblichkeit bedeutete, ihr durch eine Handlung mit ebenso unbekannten Folgen auszuweichen.” (Blumenberg 2006, p. 54) 15

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In my view, Hebbel’s parable highlights a specific character of anxiety that I term “negative inspiration.” In anxiety, we are relating ourselves to what is beyond us, to what our gaze cannot embrace nor our mind understand. But at the same time, the source of anxiety is not a pure nothingness. It provokes in us, in a confused, intense, and intermittent way, fragments of images, half-thoughts, that almost by magic— magic that some with good reason give the name ‘unconscious’—resonate with the secret sense of what could most destabilize us, with “the profound direction” of the impending threat. Anxiety tends to skip all intermediate steps: there is no cold evaluation of the situation, nor is there an accurate examination of different possibilities according to their degree of probability. Anyone in deep anxiety is in the situation of Adam: one does not understand what is going on and at the same time is able to relate in an almost inspired way to what is beyond comprehension. Anxiety tends to act out the worst possible scenario—a scenario that one has not yet been able to imagine or think, that is literally unvordenklich. The verb “acting out” should be understood in the psychoanalytical sense. Acting out is a translation of the German word “agieren.” As already seen, Freud states that unconscious drives find their expression in actions without the subject realizing their deep meaning: “The patient does not remember anything of what he has forgotten and repressed, but acts it out. He reproduces it not as a memory, but as an action; he repeats it, without, of course, knowing that he is repeating it”17 (Freud 1958, p.  150). Anxiety is the inspiration of the negative. Precisely for this reason the parable of Adam has a paradigmatic value as it shows that in his anxious reaction Adam is acting out what, strictly speaking, he is not able to conceive: “The first man could also have committed suicide for fear of death.” I have referred to the notion of “acting out” in relation to the negative inspiration of anxiety. In this regard, it is appropriate to add a clarification of no small importance. Freud investigates and limpidly defines the concept of acting out in his essay Wiederholen, Erinnern und Durcharbeiten (Repeating, Remembering, and WorkingThrough, 1946/1958). Since the person represses her drives without knowing it, she finds herself compelled to repeat certain acts over and over again. This is also the case with situations experienced in early childhood. Although highly meaningful from an affective point of view, these cannot be strictly speaking remembered because they were not understandable when they were first experienced. Freud deals with the person’s inability to remember the repressed material and the problem is therefore centered on the consciousness of the past: “We have learnt that the patient repeats instead of remembering, and repeats under the conditions of resistance. We may now ask what it is that he in fact repeats or acts out. The answer is that he repeats everything that has already made its way from the sources of the repressed into his manifest personality — his inhibitions and unserviceable attitudes and his pathological character-traits”18 (Freud 1958, p. 151). It is evident that in the  “Der Analysierte erinnere überhaupt nichts von dem Vergessenen und Verdrängten, sondern er agiere es. Er reproduziert es nicht als Erinnerung, sondern als Tat, er wiederholt es, ohne natürlich zu wissen, daß er es wiederholt.” (Freud 1946, p. 129) 18  “Wir haben nun gehört, der Analysierte wiederholt anstatt zu erinnern, er wiederholt unter den Bedingungen des Widerstandes; wir dürfen jetzt fragen, was wiederholt oder agiert er eigentlich? Die Antwort lautet, er wiederholt alles, was sich aus den Quellen seines Verdrängten bereits in seinem offenkundigen Wesen durchgesetzt hat, seine Hemmungen und unbrauchbaren Einstellungen, seine pathologischen Charakterzüge.” (Freud 1946, p. 131) 17

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case of Adam the conception of acting out is of a very different kind: in his circumstances, there is no repetition of a past event, but something is acted out that is so to speak “guessed,” “presaged,” or “foreshadowed” out of anxiety. From a different perspective, the present analysis of Adam’s case confirms the relevance of the dimension of the future for the notion of trauma (and for the unconscious) that Derrida underscores in his reflections on “9/11” (see Chapter 2, Sect. 5). The repressed does not concern only what remains radically alien from in one’s own past, but also the phantoms of the worse to come. For this reason, the very concept of acting out should be rethought in light of our openness to the future.

2.2  Presages of the Third Reich Koselleck advocates for the need to consider dreams as highly relevant documents for history as a discipline (Koselleck 1979/2007). To substantiate the validity of this claim, he wisely refers to Beradt’s valuable work, Das Dritte Reich des Traums (The Third Reich of Dreams, 2016/1985), where she gathers an impressive documentation of victims’ dreams during Nazism in Germany. Beradt even mentions some dreaming which seems to have a premonitory value: “Still the sensitivity of Jewish people particularly was so heightened by the acute threat under which they lived, that their dream imagery is marked by a clairvoyance that is almost naturalistic” (Beradt 1985, p.  137).19 It is crucial to underline the adjective “naturalistic.” Although it usually projects its own ghosts into reality, anxiety sometimes seems to intercept the secret intentions of what is about to happen. Here the inspiration of the negative in anxiety touches on premonition. I will focus on two dreams of this kind. An assimilated Jew, a lawyer by profession, narrates the first. Before emigrating abroad, where he eventually died a broken man [“gebrochener Mensch”], he lived in Berlin during the mid-thirties. In 1935 he reported the following dream: Two benches were standing side by side in Tiergarten Park, one painted the usual green and the other yellow (in those days, Jews were permitted to sit only on specially painted yellow benches). There was a trash can [Papierkorb] between them. I sat down on the trash can and hung a sign around my neck like the ones blind beggars sometimes wear, or like those the government makes ‘race violators’ [Rassenschändern] wear according to the regulations in force [behördlicherseits]: It read, I’d Make Room for Trash If Need Be.20 (Beradt 1985, p. 135)

A housewife married to a Jew reports an uncanny dream she had, also in 1935. In my view, her dream can almost be seen as a continuation of Kafka’s parable Vor dem Gesetz (Before the Law, see Section 5.4), and for this reason, if one is keen to

 “Die Sensibilität der Juden war durch akute Bedrohung so geschärft, daß sie Bilder ihrer Situation mit naturalistischer Clairvoyance zeichneten.” (Beradt 2016, pp. 126–27). 20  “Zwei Bänke stehen im Tiergarten, eine normal grün, eine gelb [Juden durften sich damals nur noch auf gelb angestrichene Bänke setzen], und zwischen beiden ein Papierkorb. Ich setze mich auf den Papierkorb und befestige selbst ein Schild an meinem Hals, wie es blinde Bettler zuweilen tragen, wie es aber auch Rassenschändern behördlicherseits umgehängt wurde: Wenn nötig, mache ich dem Papier Platz.” (Beradt 2016, p. 124–25) 19

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give titles to dreams, Nach dem Gesetz (“After/According to the Law”) seems a good proposal: While out for a walk we heard a rumor in the streets that people should not stay in their own apartments because something was going to happen. We stood across the street and looked longingly up at our apartment, where the blinds were drawn as if no one lived there. We went to my mother-in-law’s apartment, the last place left to go—up the stairs, but we discovered strange people living there now—could it be the wrong building? We went up the stairs in the building next door, but it, too, was the wrong one—a hotel. We came out by another door and tried to find our way back, but now we couldn’t even find the street any more. Suddenly, we thought we’d found the house we so badly needed, but it was only the same hotel that had confused us once before. After we’d gone through this u­ nnerving run-around [entnervende herumirren] for the third time, the woman who owned the hotel told us: ‘It won’t do you any good even if you do find that apartment. This is what’s going to happen …’ and in the manner of [Christ’s] curse on Ahasuerus [the legendary Wandering Jew], she pronounced: ‘It is the law (Gesetz) They shall dwell nowhere to ever wander through the streets Their lot shall be’ Then she returned to prose, as if she were reading out some proclamation, droned: ‘In conjunction with said law, everything previously permitted is now forbidden, to wit: entering shops and stores, employing craftsman … Right in the middle of this horrifying scene something trivial occurred to me—now where shall I have my suit made? We left the hotel and went out forever into the dismal rain.”21 (Beradt 1985, pp. 137–8, trans. modified)

Both of the two dreams seem to secretly anticipate the tragic future that will befall the Jewish people. In the first dream, the lawyer, already destined for the downgraded yellow bench, must give his place to the garbage. Given that extermination camps  “Beim Spazierengehen hören wir ein Gerücht auf der Straße, man soll nicht in seinen eigenen Wohnungen bleiben, es wird was passieren. Wir stellen uns auf die gegenüberliegende Seite der Straße und blicken sehnsüchtig zu unserer Wohnung hinauf, die Jalousien sind vorgezogen, sie sieht unbewohnt aus. Wir gehen zur Wohnung meiner Schwiegermutter, unserer letzten Zuflucht nun; die Treppe rauf, aber da wohnen ganz andere Leute, haben wir uns im Hause geirrt? Wir gehen die Treppe im Nebenhaus hinauf, aber auch falsch, das ist ein Hotel. Wir kommen an einem anderen Ausgang raus, versuchen, zurückzufinden, aber nun läßt sich die ganze Straße nicht mehr finden. Plötzlich glauben wir, doch das Haus, das wir so nötig brauchen, gefunden zu haben, aber es ist wieder das Hotel, das uns schon einmal irregeführt hat. Als sich das entnervende Herumirren zum dritten Mal wiederholt, sagt die Besitzerin des Hotels: ›Selbst wenn Sie die Wohnung finden, das wird nichts helfen. Was geschehen wird, ist das Folgende‹, und sie deklamiert in Form und Gebärde der ahasverischen Verfluchung: ›Es ist ein Gesetz: Sie sollen nirgends mehr wohnen. So durch die Straßen gehen Das soll ihr Dasein sein.‹ Dann fällt sie wieder in Prosa und leiert, als ob sie ein Protokoll verliest: ›Gleichzeitig mit besagtem Gesetz wird alles verboten, was noch erlaubt war, als da ist, Kaufläden zu betreten, Handwerker zu beschäftigen …‹ Und mir fällt mitten in dem Grauen eine Nebensache ein: Wo laß ich mir denn nun meinen Kostümstoff verarbeiten? Wir verlassen das Hotel, gehen für immer in den trüben Regen …” (Beradt 2016, pp. 126–27)

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were conceived of by the Nazis as a hygienic measure of disposal of what has been considered harmful and contaminating (the Jew), the lawyer’s dream cannot fail to appear as an uncanny premonition. In the second dream, all the anxieties relating to her condition as a woman married to a Jewish man stages in a Kafkaesque way all the misadventures that will mark the fate of the Jewish people in Germany: it is as if, through a negative inspiration, the anxiety in her dream was able to inexorably deduce all those tragic consequences whose premises already rested confusedly in the present. Hebbel’s single line parable of Adam manifests the inspired—negatively inspired—nature of anxiety. Anxiety is here able to intercept secret directions of what is about to come. However, anxiety cannot be reduced to a simple negative inspiration. It has both a revealing and a deforming character, as we have seen in relation to the illustration of its first trait and will see on several occasions in the following sections.

3  T  rait of Anxiety: The Alteration of its Bodily Manifestations 3.1  S  elf-Referentiality and Embodiment: The Recurrence of its Bodily Manifestations From a regulative perspective, there may be valid reasons for introducing a distinction between fear and anxiety with regard to the intentional aspect—especially considering the role of imagination in anxiety. However, it makes no sense to treat the two phenomena separately in relation to the bodily dimension. Indeed, it is quite hard to find distinctive features that would justify a clear differentiation between fear and anxiety both in terms of the lived body (Leiblichkeit) and in terms of the physiological processes of the organism.22 Darwin’s classic description of expressions of fear serves as point of departure for my analysis in this respect: The frightened man at first stands like a statue motionless and breathless, or crouches down as if instinctively to escape observation. The heart beats quickly and violently, so that it palpitates or knocks against the ribs; but it is very doubtful whether it then works more efficiently than usual, so as to send a greater supply of blood to all parts of the body; for the skin instantly becomes pale, as during incipient faintness. […] That the skin is much affected under the sense of great fear, we see in the marvellous and inexplicable manner in which perspiration immediately exudes from it. This exudation is all the more remarkable, as the surface is then cold, and hence the term a cold sweat; whereas, the sudorific glands are properly excited into action when the surface is heated. The hairs also on the skin stand erect; and the superficial muscles shiver. In connection with the disturbed action of the

 The investigation of the neuronal activity involved in anxiety is not part of the present study. Here I limit myself to pointing out that it would be fruitful to integrate the perspective of Ledoux (2015) with Kurt Goldstein’s ecological account (Goldstein 1934). Concerning research on anxiety in the field of neuroscience see: Gray and McNaughton 2007; Hartley et  al. 2011; Schlund and Cataldo 2010.

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heart, the breathing is hurried. The salivary glands act imperfectly; the mouth becomes dry, and is often opened and shut. […] One of the best−marked symptoms is the trembling of all the muscles of the body; and this is often first seen in the lips. From this cause, and from the dryness of the mouth, the voice becomes husky or indistinct, or may altogether fail. ‘Obstupui, steteruntque comae, et vox faucibus haesit.’ (Darwin 1872, p. 290)

Among the most characteristic bodily expressions of fear (and anxiety), we can mention the feeling of paralysis, cold sweat, difficulty in breathing, general sense of constriction, oppression in the chest, tremors, and palpitations.23 If one does not face a direct threat from the surrounding world, one may assume that those bodily alterations are related to one’s own existential condition: the pressure on the chest may immediately be connected with a heavy task, with a more or less specific pre-­ occupation about one’s own future (Kraus 1995; Tatossian 1979). One of the most prominent features of the bodily alterations in fear and anxiety is the following: if these modifications reach a certain level of intensity, they themselves contribute to the generation of additional anxiety, including the feeling of “paralysis.”24 The bodily manifestations in anxiety generate anxiety: they are very invasive in themselves. Regardless of their relation to anxiety and fear, palpitations or difficulties in breathing worry us as such. Accordingly, one typical feature of anxiety concerns its specific form of recurrence connected to these bodily alterations. In his inaugural speech as 32nd President of the United States on 4 March 1933, Roosevelt famously makes the (perhaps too optimistic) pronouncement: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself (…).” Roosevelt’s sentence clearly suggests the self-referential character of fear. The emphasis on self-­referential  Among the bodily alterations, a specific phenomenon has acquired an almost emblematic meaning for defining anxiety: vertigo. Kierkegaard, Tillich, Schelling, Sartre and Michel Henry systematically return to the relations between vertigo and anxiety. Vertigo is most often connected to the anticipation (imagining) of the negative. However, it should not be forgotten that vertigo is also considered a physiological symptom of anxiety disturbance. For example, Freud believes that a form of vertigo with very distinct characteristics occurs in anxiety neurosis: “‘Vertigo’ occupies a prominent place in the group of symptoms of anxiety neurosis. In its mildest form it is best described as ‘giddiness’; in its severer manifestations, as ‘attacks of vertigo’ (with or without anxiety), it must be classed among the gravest symptoms of the neurosis. The vertigo of anxiety neurosis is not rotatory nor does it especially affect certain planes or directions, like Meniere’s vertigo. It belongs to the class of locomotor or co-ordinatory vertigo, as does the vertigo in oculomotor paralysis. It consists in a specific state of discomfort, accompanied by sensations of the ground rocking, of the legs giving way and of its being impossible to stand up any more; while the legs feel as heavy as lead and tremble or the knees bend. This vertigo never leads to a fall. On the other hand, I should like to state that an attack of vertigo of this kind may have its place taken by a profound fainting fit. Other conditions in the nature of fainting occurring in anxiety neurosis appear to depend upon cardiac collapse. Attacks of vertigo are not seldom accompanied by the worst sort of anxiety, often combined with cardiac and respiratory disturbances. According to my observations, vertigo produced by heights, mountains and precipices is also often present in anxiety neurosis. Furthermore, I am not sure whether it is not also right to recognize alongside of this a vertigo a stomacho laeso.” (Freud 1962, pp. 95-96) 24  Darwin quotes an interesting remark made by Mr. Bain with reference to corporal punishment: “Mr Bain explains in the following manner the origin of the custom ‘of subjecting criminals in India to the ordeal of the morsel of rice. The accused is made to take a mouthful of rice, and after a little time to throw it out. If the morsel is quite dry, the party is believed to be guilty,− his own evil conscience operating to paralyse the salivating organs.” (Darwin 1872, p. 290) 23

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character of fear is all but new in the philosophical investigation of this affect. Here, it suffices to mention that in his Summa theologiae Thomas Aquinas deals in depth with the question of whether fear itself can be the object of fear. An elucidation of Thomas’s question does not only presuppose a clarification of his theory of the affects, but would also require a detailed analysis of his anthropology, which clearly goes beyond the scope of my research. Here, I am only interested in emphasizing a single argument brought by Thomas in favor of the thesis that fear (timor) could be the object of fear: I answer that, As stated above (Article 3), nothing can be an object of fear, save what is due to an extrinsic cause; but not that which ensues from our own will. Now fear partly arises from an extrinsic cause, and is partly subject to the will. It is due to an extrinsic cause, in so far as it is a passion resulting from the imagination of an imminent evil. In this sense it is possible for fear to be the object of fear, i.e. a man may fear lest he should be threatened by the necessity of fearing, through being assailed by some great evil.25 (Thomas Aquinas 1914, p. 482)

If in fear there is anticipation of a future evil, in this anticipation there is also inevitably a reference to the bodily affect involved in the future fear of evil. Does this reference help to motivate and enhance one’s own present fear? If one assumes that fear itself (and, therefore, the future fear as well) involves unpleasant bodily alterations, one may understand from a different perspective the reasons why fear itself may become the object of fear. In my opinion, the self-referential feature of fear is also anchored in the recurrence of its bodily alterations. The increased sense of bodily agitation or paralysis intensifies the affection of anxiety. It is possible to further deepen our understanding of this aspect by considering panic attacks. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5, APA 2013) indicates the specific traits of panic disorder as follows: 1. Palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate. 2. Sweating. 3. Trembling or shaking. 4. Sensations of shortness of breath or smothering. 5. Feeling of choking. 6. Chest pain or discomfort 7. Nausea or abdominal distress. 8. Feeling dizzy, unsteady, light-headed, or faint. 9. Chills or heat sensations. 10. Paresthesias (numbness or tingling sensations). 11. Derealization (feelings of unreality) or depersonalization (being detached from oneself). 12. Fear of losing control or “going crazy.” 13. Fear of dying. (DSM 2013, p. 208)  “Respondeo dicendum quod, sicut dictum est, illud solum habet rationem terribilis, quod ex causa extrinseca provenit, non autem quod provenit ex voluntate nostra. Timor autem partim provenit ex causa extrinseca, et partim subiacet voluntati. Provenit quidem ex causa extrinseca, inquantum est passio quaedam consequens phantasiam imminentis mali. Et secundum hoc, potest aliquis timere timorem, ne scilicet immineat ei necessitas timendi, propter ingruentiam alicuius excellentis mali.” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Book I-II quaestio 42 article 4)

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Several bodily phenomena listed above (such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9) are also characteristics of “non-pathological” anxiety, although the intensity in the two cases is very different. It is interesting to remind ourselves that the one who suffers from panic attacks is especially afraid of their repetition. Here also we can see the autopoietic feature of anxiety “at work.” At this point, it is appropriate to make a methodological remark on the relation between pathological phenomena and non-pathological experience: to what extent is it legitimate to address the bodily manifestation of anxiety in the light of panic attacks? Do the bodily manifestations of anxiety come to full expression in panic attacks? Could panic attacks be seen as the culmination point of anxiety? Michael Theunissen affirms that pathological phenomena serve as magnifying glasses for non-pathological experience. In pathological phenomena essential features of our everyday experience show themselves as such. His investigation of depression intends to show one capital feature of our temporal experience which remains hidden in our “normal” life: the dominion of time (die Herrschaft der Zeit, Theunissen 1991b). It is certainly true that anomalies and pathologies allow us to take distance from common sense and from the norms implicit in normality (Goldstein 1934/1995; Canguilhem 1991; Ginzburg 2000).26 Yet, Theunissen’s position risks overemphasizing the continuity between “normality” and pathology. Pathologies serve as magnifying glasses at the cost of other essential features of the phenomenon. Goldstein rightly emphasizes that pathologies imply a reconfiguration of the whole organism. Pathology does not only have a magnifying effect, but also entails a transformation of the whole experience. Essential moments of anxiety, such as the “quasi-intentional imaginative anticipation,” tend to disappear during panic attacks. Therefore it is crucial to do justice to the inner tensions that qualify the relation between normality and pathology: it is essential to emphasize their resemblances while stressing the heterogeneous elements that make them radically different. To summarize: anxiety is an autopoietic phenomenon; its bodily manifestation generates additional stress and anxiety.

3.2  A Threatening Atmosphere Not only Michael Theunissen, but also Hermann Schmitz tends to overemphasize the continuity between pathological and non-pathological experience. Hermann Schmitz wrote his monumental work System der Philosophie (“System of Philosophy”) from 1964 to 1980 (Schmitz, 1964-1980). This work, with its remarkable length of 5163 pages, is divided into ten volumes. From a systematic point of view, anxiety (Angst) is a phenomenon of paramount importance within Schmitz’s System der Philosophie. Anxiety and pain are the two eminent phenomena for 26  “No norm can predict the full range of its transgressions; transgressions and anomalies, on the contrary, always imply the norm and therefore urge us to take it into account as well. This is why a research strategy based on blurred edges, mistakes, and anomalies seems to me potentially much more rewarding.” (Ginzburg 2000, p. 556)

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understanding the present (Gegenwart). The present plays the role of the principle of philosophy in Schmitz’s system. But why treat anxiety in relation to the present? The basic point is that anxiety is interpreted as a movement of impeded escape. But from what does one attempt to escape? Schmitz’s answer is, precisely, the present. In the first volume of the System der Philosophie, Schmitz begins his investigation of anxiety by considering various situations in which this affect arises. One of the main goals of his inquiry is to offer a clear distinction between fear and anxiety. One of his first examples is a nightmare: I find myself being chased by a stranger. In Schmitz’s view, at first there is no anxiety, but only a strong fear of being caught. Therefore, I move circumspectly so as not to be noticed. Anxiety occurs at a very precise moment: when I have the sensation of not being able to move forward, while the intruder gets closer and closer. Anxiety arises from the tension between my desire to move away and the impossibility of translating my impulse into action. While in fear attention is directed to the other and, simultaneously, to the environment, in anxiety the self-relation becomes predominant: I want go away but I cannot. I find myself fighting against my own impotence: “As a mere fearing one I was not fighting with myself, but merely with the pursuer and the danger of harm. In anxiety, on the other hand, I am in dispute with myself: My impulse ‘away!’ is in conflict with my being under a spell, my incomprehensible inability to leave the place”27 (Schmitz 1964, p. 170). This place (“here”) need not be understood in a spatial sense. An anxious feeling of guilt for a past misconduct has the same structure, although it does not refer to a here determined in a locational sense. In anxiety one does not want to be exactly where one is: one would like to leave one’s own condition, but feels nailed to it: “Anxiety […] occurs when the urge to repel something is inhibited, whether the thing to be repelled is grossly physical or sublimely spiritual”28 (Schmitz 1964, p. 174). Fear thus turns into anxiety at the moment when one cannot get away from that which restricts one’s freedom of movement.29 In his later essay Die Angst: Atmosphäre und leibliches Befinden (“The anxiety: atmosphere and bodily condition”), Schmitz takes into consideration several anxiety disturbances. The first two forms of them are particularly interesting for our purposes. First, he refers to a case analyzed by the psychotherapist Hans von Hattingberg (1931). One of Hattingberg’s patients feels a pain in the pit of his stomach. The patient describes his anxiety as an uncanny (unheimlich) feeling. Schmitz’s reference to this

 “Als bloßer Fürchtender lag ich nicht im Streit mit mir selbst, sondern bloß mit dem Verfolger und der Gefahr des Schadens. In der Angst bin ich dagegen mit mir selbst entzweit: Mein Impuls ‘Weg!’ liegt im Streit mit meinem Festgebanntsein, meinem unbegreiflichen Unvermögen, den Platz zu verlassen.” (Schmitz 1964, p. 170) 28  “Angst […] tritt ein, wenn der Drang, etwas abzustoßen, gehindert wird, gleichgültig, ob das Abzustoßende grob körperlich oder sublim geistig ist.” (Schmitz 1964, p. 174) 29  Recently, Hermann Schmitz’s writings have gained great influence in phenomenological research on anxiety produced in the German speaking world. The essays by Hartmut Böhme (1997, 2013, 2016), by Demmerling & Landweer (2007), by Gernot Böhme (1995) or by Krämer (2011) have a common ground: they are based on Hermann Schmitz’s analysis of anxiety. Schmitz conceives of anxiety in terms of an impeded impulse to flee, to go away (gehindertes Weg!). Thomas Fuchs (2000, 2010) and Annegret Boll-Klatt (1994) both take this perspective as a point of departure to investigate anxiety disturbances from a psychopathological perspective. 27

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“unspectacular” case fulfills the function of introducing two interconnected characteristics of anxiety (Angst): on the one hand, anxiety is localizable in the body. On the other hand, it has a diffuse character similar to an all-pervading atmosphere in which one finds oneself. The second form of anxiety that Schmitz explores is the so-called twilight anxiety (Dämmerungsangst) which the neurologist S.W.  Engel has investigated (Engel 1957). Some patients become deeply agitated at sunset. They feel almost literally wrapped up in the light of the sunset’s atmosphere. They find themselves immersed in a very distinctive loneliness, as if they were floating in an emptiness where everything seems to fall apart.30 In twilight anxiety (Dämmerungsangst), the qualitative and synesthetic transformation of the whole environment opens up an overwhelming vastness that makes any stable determination of the surrounding world difficult. From the point of view of objective ‘geometric’ relations, nothing seems to be changed, but the contrast of the perceptual appearances with their relief (Abhebung), their significance, and the whole atmosphere undergo a significant transformation at sunset. Schmitz considers this form of anxiety disturbance as a complex feeling articulated on two different axes. 1. It involves a feeling of a boundless atmosphere enveloping the patient (“uferlose ergosene Atmosphäre,” Schmitz 1964, p.  136). He defines this boundless atmosphere as fear (Furcht). 2. It also entails a localizable bodily affect (leibliche Regung). Anxiety is essentially related to it. 1. Fear is regarded as a threatening atmosphere that entails a double structure divided into an ‘anchoring point’ (Verankerungspunkt) and an ‘area of condensation’ (Verdichtungsbereich).31 Schmitz uses these two notions to describe fear as an atmosphere pervading concrete situations. Let us think of a person who is afraid to go to the dentist (Schmitz 2008, pp. 150–152); a. Fear as an atmosphere receives a specific orientation by virtue of the anchoring point: in the case of dental treatment, the immediate expectation of physical pain (the anchoring point). b. The anchoring point is always accompanied by an area of condensation that distinctively fills the room: the doctor, the various instruments, the medical gown, the unmistakable smell of a dentist’s office, are imbued with an atmosphere of imminent threat. It is a unique climate that permeates everything. This climate often remains unnoticed. The patient rather focuses his attention on the specific threat (the anchoring point).32 2. Anxiety arises when, by responding to the all-pervading atmosphere, the patient is bodily affected by a motion: “This atmospheric fear becomes the patient’s own

 Here Schmitz is clearly influenced by Heidegger’s description of anxiety elaborated in Was ist Metaphysik?. Schmitz explicitly refers to Heidegger’s inaugural lecture. 31  Schmitz takes over these notions from Metzger who first developed the concepts of anchoring point and condensation area in relation to visual perception of figures (Metzger 1975, pp. 175-194). 32  “In the case of fear of the dentist, for example, the area of condensation of this atmosphere gripping the patient is the doctor with his feared drill, but the anchoring point is the pain that the patient expects from it. […] The fear of the dentist is a centered atmosphere with an area of condensation and an anchoring point. It rests as an organized Gestalt on its anchoring point, the prospect of pain, but this phenomenally recedes behind the area of condensation in fear, so that one does not speak of fear of pain, but of fear of the dentist.” (Schmitz 2008, pp. 150-151) 30

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through the anxiety with which it grips him in a bodily perceptible way”33 (Schmitz 2008, p. 151). Schmitz argues that fear as an atmosphere shows itself as such only through anxiety, through our experience of the impossibility of ­fleeing. To summarize: Schmitz describes the relation between anxiety and fear in two different ways respectively in System der Philosophie and in a later essay Die Angst: Atmosphäre und leibliches Befinden (“The Anxiety: Atmosphere and Bodily Condition”). In both accounts, a fundamental feature remains unaltered: anxiety is conceived as an inhibited impulse to escape. 34 Schmitz’s description of anxiety aims at avoiding an account based on the well-­ known dichotomy between inner feeling and external causes: anxiety cannot be described as an internal subjective state produced by exogenous factors belonging to the surrounding environment. Such a dichotomous description would presuppose a metaphysics based on the distinction between an inner (spiritual and subjective) reality and an external (material and physical) world. According to Schmitz, there is no trace of a such dichotomy in our lived experience. We are immediately pervaded by atmospheres to which we respond through certain bodily affects. Space is not originally perceived in a cognitive way, but manifests itself as an unmistakable atmosphere that pervades our lived body. A distinctive atmosphere is in the air and affects us. For example, one can mention the tension we feel while observing the confrontation of two opposing groups of protesters in a public square. Their apprehension is ‘palpable.’ The atmosphere is tense. While this aspect is undeniable, focusing exclusively or primarily on this dimension risks radically misunderstanding the phenomenon of anxiety. Schmitz ends up with a description of physiological processes of forces. In his description of anxiety, Schmitz develops an atmospheric physiology of one’s own lived body (Leib). An essential feature of our lived body is the vital drive which is characterized by the two opposing tendencies of narrowing (Enge) and  “Diese atmosphärische Furcht wird zur eigenen des Patienten durch die Angst, mit der sie ihn leiblich spürbar ergreift.” (Schmitz 2008, p. 151) 34  It is evident that Schmitz develops two different approaches in System der Philosophie and in his later essay Die Angst: Atmosphäre und leibliches Befinden. In System der Philosophie, fear is not viewed as an atmosphere from which anxiety arises. Fear is rather considered as a particular bodily affect (leibliche Regung). Fear appears when one faces threatening circumstances, while maintaining his ‘freedom of movement.’ If we consider more closely Schmitz’s imaginary examples of two threatening situations in a cinema, it becomes apparent that fear in the first volume of the System der Philosophie must be considered as an alternative leibliche Regung to anxiety, and not as an atmosphere. In the first case, someone is chasing a woman into an empty movie theatre: “The hall is empty, except for a persecutor and a persecuted person. The persecuted woman fearfully flees by cautiously passing over the rows of chairs, through the corridors, etc., until, in the most favourable case, she reaches outside. Then she might not have had anxiety despite the intense fear: she always had room to dodge the threat; her ‘away!’ (Weg!) was not inhibited” (Schmitz 1964, p. 176). In the second case, the theatre is full and suddenly catches fire. Panic spreads throughout. “In contrast to the previous example, the theatre is full, so the way out is apparently blocked. So, as I have just required for anxiety as such, the impulse ‘away!’ is hindered” (Schmitz 1964, p. 176). In my view, these two examples show how implausible the Schmitzian distinction between fear and anxiety is. How can one argue in the first case that a woman does not experience any anxiety, if one bears in mind that she is being chased in a deserted theatre? Should the absence of other people inside the cinema not increase the anxiety in terms of the anticipation of worst scenario? To make such a decisive distinction between fear and anxiety through these two examples is phenomenologically counter-intuitive. 33

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expanding (Weite).35 In his first volume of System der Philosophie, Schmitz considers the case of a student who is almost ‘panicking’ before an examination; he remains sitting on his chair waiting for this bad moment to pass (Schmitz, 1964, p. 195). Schmitz has a tendency to treat anxiety as a total blindness: whoever feels anxiety is unable to retrace the reasons for its emergence: As already said, the violence of anxiety does not leave the affected person the leeway that would allow him to give a clear account of the difference in the occasions for anxiety, but constricts her consciousness, as it were, to a primitive originary experience, and while it is differentiated according to various anxiety-occasions and anxiety-reactions, it remains simple and uniform in the core of what it presents. The more intense the anxiety becomes, the less space, time, and circumstance in their peculiarity matter to the Weg! (‘away!’).”36 (Schmitz 1964, p. 195)

It is certainly true that if anxiety becomes particularly intense, everything becomes indeterminate and confused—but it is not self-evident that we ought to consider this extreme form as the guiding thread for understanding this phenomenon. Anxiety cannot be conceived of primarily as a blind and uniform experience, as Schmitz maintains. Usually, anxiety makes us see phantasms, it exaggerates dangers, it distorts perspectives in different ways according to different phenomena. In other words, it coherently (i.e. in a very specific style) alters our relations to the world, but does so in very heterogeneous ways. A blind and uncoordinated tremor is characteristic of a panic attack. Certainly one also has to take the pathological forms of extreme anxiety into account, but it is not self-evident that these forms must be its core. One fundamental assumption of Schmitz’s approach to anxiety is that we have no access to the motives of anxiety. It is as if the various motives of anxiety contract into bodily oppression, which leaves no room for possible reflection: “The complex of occasions for anxiety is then not unfolded clearly before the mental gaze, but it is as if it were contracted into a simple narrowness that wants to oppress the consciousness and does not allow it any leeway for contemplative presentification of the occasions for anxiety”37 (Schmitz 1964, p. 193). Here, too, we witness a description of   According to Schmitz, anxiety essentially involves the dynamic dialectic of tightening (Spannung), as a prominent tendency towards narrowing (Enge), and swelling (Schwellung) as a tendency towards expansion (Weite). Every movement towards expansion engages the reaction of a more powerful opposing force (Schmitz 2011, pp. 17-27). Spannung and Schwellung are always in a relation of mutual competition (Boll-Klatt 1994, p. 133). This competition constitutes a bodily economy of its own (leibliche Ökonomie) (Soentgen 1998). This economy, however, does not only concern one’s own lived body in a singular sense, but concerns the relation between oneself and others as in the case of an encounter of two glances—Schmitz uses the notion of Einleibung to define this leibliche communication. The investigation of this research area belongs to a more mature phase of Schmitz’s work (Schmitz 1990, 2011). At the same time, it must be noted that the validity of the concept of Einleibung is not limited to the “intersubjective” relation. 36  “Die Gewalt der Angst, lässt dem Betroffenen, wie schon gesagt wurde, nicht dem Spielraum, der ihm gestatten würde, sich von dem Unterschied der Angstanlässe deutliche Rechenschaft zu geben, sondern schnürt sein Bewusstsein gleichsam zu einem primitiven Urerlebnis zusammen, das sich zwar gemäß den verschiedenen Angstanlässen und Reaktionen differenziert, aber im Kern dessen, was es präsentiert, einfach und gleichförmig bleibt. Je intensiver die Angst wird, desto weniger bedeuten für das ‚Weg!’ Raum, Zeit, und Umstände in ihrer Eigenart.” (Schmitz 1964, p. 195) 37  “Der Komplex der Angstanlässe ist dann nicht übersichtlich vor dem geistigen Blick entfaltet, sondern gleichsam in eine einfache Enge zusammengezogen, die das Bewusstsein erdrücken will 35

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anxiety showing an undue polarization of this experience that does not help us understand the phenomenon in question. Between a sovereign mental gaze that dominates the situation and a bodily oppression in terms of blind narrowing without any intentional reference there is a whole range of intermediate phenomena of which most of our anxiety consists. Anxiety always presupposes and involves an anticipation of the scene that has a ‘quasi-intentional’ character. As we have seen, the threatening scene forms itself in a dialectic between anticipation and obscure phantasy. In Schmitz’s account the sense of impossibility is, if not reduced, primarily linked to a bodily narrowing: the sense of impossibility shows itself primarily in the subject’s inability to expand itself into the vastness. Anxiety is an ambiguous feeling which involves a complex interplay between heterogeneous subjective dimensions (such as temporality, phantasy, embodiment, etc.). It is not possible to attribute primacy to a specific subjective dimension (Leiblichkeit) over other dimensions (such as temporality or intersubjectivity) in order to understand anxiety.38

4  Trait: Interlocution with an Alien Power 4.1  H  ow Does One Become Responsible for One’s Own Anxiety? Should anxiety be considered an “affect” that occurs to us in a entirely passive way, as if it were an automatic process? Or, on the contrary, are we able to preserve leeway for initiative in it? In my view, it is promising to use the paradoxical category of a responsive initiative in order to understand our relation to anxiety. und ihm keinen Spielraum besinnlicher Vergegenwärtigung der Angstanlässe zugesteht.” (Schmitz 1964, p. 193) 38  Although I share his criticism again the phenomenological inadequacy of a dichotomous approach to feeling, I think that Schmitz does not define the relation between the sense of impossibility and the bodily feeling of narrowing (Enge) in a phenomenologically appropriate way. In a previous essay, I critically discussed the problematic aspects of Schmitz’s approach to feelings as non-intentional atmospheres, with specific reference to anxiety (see Micali 2019). Here, I would like to concentrate on the distinction between condensation area (Verdichtungsbereich) and anchoring point. If we consider the notion of fear developed by Schmitz in his later writing Die Angst: Atmosphäre und leibliches Befinden, it is crucial to emphasize that fear never is centered on a single anchoring point, but always has several anchoring points at the same time. Anxiety is characterized by an essential mobility: what belongs to a field of condensation can suddenly become an anchoring point. Ultimately, it is always already elsewhere. The proliferation of the anchoring points basically has to do with the excess of “everything possible” inherent in anxiety. In anxiety our attention constantly oscillates in three different directions: 1. As we have already seen, our bodily responses to anxiety generate anxiety on their own. 2. A free floating and uncanny feeling connected to the irruption of a negative, almost catastrophic event (diffuse anxiety). The subject does not know exactly what will happen or what is to be expected, but has no doubt that something radically negative and overwhelming will come to light. 3. The expectation that this irruption will concern specific fragile dimensions in which negative experiences have already been “sedimented.”

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In his work Bruchlinien der Erfahrung, Waldenfels introduces the concept of the originary diastasis (Urdiastase) to determine the complex relations between the anteriority of affect (pathos) and the posteriority of our response to it (Waldenfels 2002). Originary diastasis concerns the relations between pathos understood as being struck by something (Wovon des Getroffenseins) and our response to what has already struck us (Worauf des Antwortens): the beginning of the experience is an overdetermined affectio which will be first defined through our response to it: “It is only in responding to what we are struck by that what strikes us emerges as such”39 (Waldenfels 2002, p.  59). To the extent that our saying does not only show an already defined meaning by following established rules, but also bring something new to expression here and now, it takes on certain traits of pathos. What happens to me in terms of a certain affect or appeal bestows on me the status of a patient, the latter taken in a wider sense. In this context I make use of the Greek word pathos which has a triple meaning; it denotes the passivity of endurance, the vulnerability of suffering, and the fervency of passion. The term affect comes rather close to it, provided that we do not conceive affect in terms of subjective states, but as af-fect, what literally means something “done to,” similar to the meaning of words like al-locution, ad-dressing, or ap-­ peal which suggest a sort of “speaking to.” (Waldenfels 2011, pp. 155-156)

In Waldenfels’s philosophy, disparate lines of research—from Goldstein to Derrida, from Merleau-Ponty to Foucault, from Freud to Levinas, from Bakhtin to Laplanche—converge. These different lines share a common ground: the idea of a decentralized subject. The conception of originary diastasis attempts to do justice to the intertwining between ipseity and alterity.40 It intends to affirm the inescapability of being affected while preserving a subjective initiative that can only be of a responsive kind. Accordingly, Waldenfels underscores a constitutive caesura, a necessary gap between an inchoative affect and the de-termination of this affect through our response: only in our responses we are able to relate to and therefore to shape the event that has already struck us and, strictly speaking, precedes us. The pathos that here in the midst of intentionally orientated and regulated events arises as an être sauvage shows that something that is apprehended and interpreted as something is more and less than what it means. In each case, it shows itself to be more and different than what can be said.41 (Waldenfels 2002, p. 33)

 “Erst im Antworten auf das, wovon wir getroffen sind, tritt das, was uns trifft, als solches zutage.” (Waldenfels 2002, p. 59)” 40  Already in Antwortregister Waldenfels uses the concept of the diastasis to highlight the structural lateness of the responsive moment (Wandelfels 1994, p.  266). In Antwortregister (Waldenfels, 1994), however, the extreme ‘poles’ of the diastasis are to be found in the appeal and in the answer, and not, as in Bruchlinien der Erfahrung, in pathos and the answer. I have analyzed the relevance of this shift for Waldenfels’s responsive phenomenology in my essay ‘Heterochronien’ (Micali 2007). On Waldenfels’s responsive phenomenology see Busch, et  al. (2007) and Fischer et al. (2011). 41  “Das Pathos, das hier inmitten des intentional gerichteten und geregelten Geschehens auftaucht als ein être sauvage, zeigt, dass etwas, das als etwas aufgefasst und gedeutet wird, mehr oder weniger ist, als das, was es bedeutet. Es zeigt sich jeweils mehr und anderes, als sich sagen lässt.” (Waldenfels 2002, p. 33) 39

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Pathos as af-fect is the (deferred) beginning of our experience. We find ourselves in anxiety without at first knowing what has destabilized us: the anteriority of being affected comes clearly to the fore here.42 Starting from this pathos, we try to retrace what has already happened to us. It is necessary to preserve the perspective of the “subject” who finds itself disturbed by an indeterminate (and overdetermined) event. It is important to avoid a common mistake: to misunderstand the reflexively objectified reconstruction of the situation with the originary experience, believing that a coherent and regulated relation between world, the other and myself was present from the very beginning. Pathos “generates its own history in a retroactive sense, it is reflected in the past. But this unusual thing-in-itself demands an affection without something concerning us. The ‘something’ already belongs to the response that interprets the event. Being struck, which is to be interpreted in a similar way to being moved, precedes the encounter with something” (Waldenfels 2002, p. 59). The self constitutes itself in the responses to the pathos as affect. The self cannot be thought independently of the affect: if the self forms itself starting from an affect, my beginning is neither in me nor outside of me, but “it is already divided in itself, connected to a self that precedes itself, because it lives starting from the other and in the other”43 (Waldenfels 2002, p. 176). We have a paradigmatic example of how the subject constitutes the other and itself through a response to an event that preceded itself in the transformation of free-floating anxiety into fear directed at a specific threat: That before which we are anxious [“Das Wovor der Angst”] consists in a lived and experienced threat, which precedes the knowledge of real sources of danger and the defense against real dangers, similar to how hearing a sound precedes its determination as a violin sound or how the perceived excitement precedes the measurement of the increased blood pressure. Like all pathos, anxiety’s pathos manifests itself in an originary way in the effect that it produces in a living, bodily self. I call this effect a response. It is not to be ascribed to an autarkic subject, but to a respondent who is more or less able to say ‘I’ in response and to act as an I, but who initially appears in the weak form of a pre-I (Vor-Ich). [...] The primary experience is gradually articulated in repeatable meaning-and-rule structures. This is when anxiety is transformed into fear. More precisely, what anxiety affectively stands

 “But what we call ‘Widerfahrnis’ brings us on a path of a special kind. This way opens, if we try to think of the pathic event of the Widerfahrnis as being struck. In being struck there is a perfective moment, a moment of temporal antecedence. What happens or befalls us has always already happened when we respond to it.” (Waldenfels 2002, p. 56) 43  “Pathos does not mean something given, from which experience comes or in which experience under certain conditions occurs; it is the experience itself, insofar as it withdraws itself” (Waldenfels 2002, p. 173). The originary diastasis intends to carry out an “affective” epoché with the aim of going beyond the dichotomy between subject and object in order to allow for the emergence of a wild dimension (in Merleau-Ponty’s sense) characterized by the intertwining between the self, the world, and the other: “Between the two extreme poles [of the originary diastasis: Wovon des Getroffenseins and Worauf des Antwortens], a network spreads out that consists of affordances and calls, of intentions and aspirations, and in which the what and why of things, one’s own self and the otherness both of the other and of the others are formed” (Waldenfels 2002, p. 178-179). From the ecological point of view, Waldenfels follows Goldstein and accordingly believes that anxiety signals a significant imbalance between the organism and the surrounding world. 42

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before [“Das Wovor der Angst”] is transformed into something addressed by our directed response.44 (Waldenfels 2015, p. 73)

Within the framework of Waldenfels’ responsive phenomenology, I intend to raise some questions about our responsibility for our anxiety: if anxiety is a pathos that affects us from the outside, are we really accountable for feeling it? And if this is the case, to what extent and in which ways do we become responsible for our anxieties? Here, it is crucial to do justice to the tension between the different elements involved. On the one hand, we are not masters of our anxiety—as an affect it is not in our power. It happens that we feel anxious in an unpredictable way. On the other hand, we interact with our anxiety: we can respond to it in various ways. But how does our response to it come about? And, above all, when does my response to anxiety turn into responsibility for my anxiety? How and at what point do we become accountable and therefore guilty of being anxious? Kierkegaard addresses the latter decisive question in Sect. 2.1 of The Concept of Anxiety. The transition from the condition of innocence to that of guilt constitutes one of the most sophisticated analyses of Kierkegaard’s philosophy in general. His purpose is to show anxiety’s qualitative leap that should not be traced back to quantitative determinations nor to a coherent system of dialectical relations: The qualitative leap stands outside of all ambiguity. But he who becomes guilty through anxiety is indeed innocent, for it was not he himself but anxiety, an alien power, that laid hold of him, a power that he did not love but about which he was anxious. And yet he is guilty, for he sank in anxiety, which he nevertheless loved even as he feared it. There is nothing in the world more ambiguous. (Kierkegaard 1980a, p. 43, trans. modified)

How can one become guilty through anxiety? We become responsible in a profoundly ambiguous way because our responsibility is passive in nature; we consent to the phantoms of anxiety—attracted, almost enchanted by them, we believe in its most unlikely apparitions/appearances. We become guilty of anxiety only by listening to it. Anxiety is presented here as an alien power that attracts and misleads us, misleads us by attracting us and attracts us by misleading us: “And yet he is guilty, for he sank in anxiety, which he nevertheless loved even as he feared it.” Here, responsibility manifests itself as impotence or more precisely as the weakness of consenting to anxiety’s intriguing power of seduction: we say yes to its apparitions by not replying, by remaining silent. Accordingly, one becomes guilty

 “Das Wovor der Angst besteht also in einer gelebten und erlebten Bedrohung, die dem Wissen um reale Gefahrenquellen und der Abwehr von realen Gefahren vorausgeht, ähnlich wie das Hören eines Tons seiner Bestimmung als Geigenton oder wie die gefühlte Aufregung der Messung des erhöhten Blutdrucks vorausgeht. Das Pathos der Angst manifestiert sich wie jedes Pathos auf originäre Weise in der Wirkung, die es in einem lebenden, leibhaften Selbst hervorruft. Diese Wirkung bezeichne ich als Response. Sie ist keinem autarken Subjekt zuzuschreiben, sondern einem Respondenten, der mehr oder weniger in der Lage ist, antwortend ‚ich’ zu sagen und als Ich zu handeln, der aber anfänglich in der schwachen Form eines Vor-Ich auftritt. [...] Die primäre Erfahrung artikuliert sich allmählich in wiederholbaren Bedeutungs- und Regelstrukturen. Hierbei kommt es zur Verwandlung von Angst in Furcht. Genauer gesagt verwandelt sich das Wovor der pathischen Angst in ein Worauf des gerichteten Antwortens.” (Waldenfels 2015, p. 73).

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in an extremely simple way: Guilt means the passivity of being caught, captured and hypnotized by anxiety. One listens to its fascinating vortex of apparitions; one lets oneself be carried away by its current of phantastic (im)possibilities.

4.2  Anxiety as Alien Power One of the most provocative claims in The Concept of Anxiety is that in learning to be anxious in the right way one learns something ultimate. One must learn to neither avoid nor succumb to anxiety. But how is it possible to find the right balance? Kierkegaard’s passage reads: In one of Grimm’s fairy tales there is a story of a young man who goes in search of adventure in order to learn what it is to be in anxiety. We will let the adventurer pursue his journey without concerning ourselves about whether he encountered the terrible on his way. However, I will say that this is an adventure that every human being must go through—to learn to be anxious in order that he may not perish either by never having been in anxiety or by succumbing to anxiety. Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate. (Kierkegaard 1980a, p. 155)

What does it mean to learn to be anxious in the right way? How to be anxious without succumbing to anxiety? Furthermore, how is it possible to assess that our relation to anxiety is balanced? On what criteria is this assessment based? Moreover, how can we withstand anxiety? In order to answer these questions, a meticulous description of our relation to anxiety is needed. Anxiety cannot be reduced to the Heideggerian category of Stimmung. It is not merely a mood into which we are suddenly thrown and that opens the world to us in a specific way. Our relation to anxiety is highly ambiguous, since we interact with it. Accordingly, it would not be inappropriate to take Kierkegaard’s above mentioned definition of anxiety as an “alien power” very seriously: “But he who becomes guilty through anxiety is indeed innocent, for it was not he himself but anxiety, an alien power, that laid hold of him, a power that he did not love but about which he was anxious” (Kierkegaard 1980a, p. 43, trans. modified) Anxiety is an alien, elusive power characterized by heteronomy. In his unfinished late work Le visible et l’invisible, Merleau-Ponty affirms the daring thesis that Sinnbildungen (sense-formations) of the perceptual world are to be regarded as “quasi-ipseities” (Merleau-Ponty 1964). Such an approach seems to me even more plausible in relation to the dynamics and constellations of affective life. From a systematic point of view, it is precisely at this point that Marc Richir’s distinction between the ipseity of the self and the ipseity of Sinnbildungen becomes significant.45 When you feel weak, anxiety advances and makes its way. When you feel  “Si l’on retrouve par là le contact de soi à soi de la ‚conscience de soi’ la plus archaïque, c’est dans la mesure où le sens ne peut se faire tout seul, où il lui faut quelqu’un pour le faire ou plutôt pour l’aider à accoucher de soi dans ce faire, donc un soi dont l’ipséité́ ne se confond pas avec l’ipséité́ du sens, mais assiste (à) cette dernière.” (Richir 2010, p. 35)

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safe and are finally ready to face those ghosts that are generally systematically avoided, it is as if anxiety withdraws itself: it slips away. If you try to elude anxiety by not listening to its improbable associations, then you remain in a state of suspension waiting for its counter-movement. Anxiety must not only be described in relation to the actual affect, but must be considered in its duration and in its history, which is the history of our interaction with it: And no Grand Inquisitor has such dreadful torments in readiness as anxiety has, and no secret agent knows as cunningly as anxiety how to attack his suspect in his weakest moment or to make alluring the trap in which he will be caught, and no discerning judge understands how to interrogate and examine the accused as does anxiety, which never lets the accused escape, neither through amusement, nor by noise, nor during work, neither by day nor by night. (Kierkegaard 1980a, pp. 155-156)

Kierkegaard does not describe anxiety as a mood, rather as a cunning player. In the above passage anxiety acquires a quasi-personal character and is treated as an alien power, with which—almost with whom—we interact. Anxiety is compared to specific historical figures or certain social roles. It surpasses the great Spanish inquisitors in their art of threatening. It beats the spies in their cunning art of disguises and misrepresentations. It surpasses the judges in their art of interrogation. Here, anxiety is an interlocutor as evasive as it is dominant. It is as if it had its own particular agency. It is not by chance that Schelling compares anxiety—with regard to the notion of “generality of evil”—to the song of the sirens. Anxiety calls human freedom “just as a mysterious voice seems to call someone seized by vertigo on a high and precipitous summit to plunge down, or as in the myth the irresistible song of the sirens rang out from the depths in order to draw mariners sailing through down into the whirlpool” (Schelling 1984, p. 65). Concerning anxiety, the figure of the siren is appropriate for several reasons. Firstly, in Schelling’s passage anxiety takes on an almost personal character: it has a voice. Secondly, the figure of a siren reveals the intertwining between anxiety and phantasy. Thirdly, this comparison emphasizes the (already mentioned) moment of enchantment: sirens bewitch us, seduce us. One is almost hypnotized by the melody of anxiety (Llevadot and Revilla 2013, pp. 93-97). The self has the vivid impression that it cannot resist the “force of attraction” that comes from it.

5  Trait of Anxiety: Negative Teleology 5.1  The Ambiguity of the Anxiety-Preparedness Schelling’s previous comparison to the siren helps us to a highlight an additional feature of anxiety: it has a seductive voice and yet is also the prelude to a catastrophe. The siren’s song tends to lead us to the most undesired place. Let us take a concrete situation in order clarify the negative teleology inherent to anxiety: a clinical case reported by the psychoanalyst Hermann Lang. A woman notices an anomaly with respect to her body: she found a lump in her breast. She immediately thinks

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of the worst scenario: breast cancer (Lang & Faller 1996, p. 10). She is understandably gripped by deep anxiety. The anxiety becomes panic: that discovery destabilizes the woman to the point of inducing her to ignore the signal. It is appropriate to examine this case further. It is as if the psychic costs of facing her anxiety are so exorbitant that an irresponsible choice is preferred. Full of anguish, she intentionally overlooks the signal and, in this way, compromises her chances at a cure. The denial of the signal, in an almost paradoxical way, favors exactly what agitates the woman and motivates the depth of her anxiety: the worsening of the disease and, possibly, death. The denial of the signal directly leads to what is the source of her anxiety. Blumenberg’s remark on human sacrifice among the Aztecs sheds light on anxiety’s negative teleology. It is worth remembering, to present an extreme case, the sacrificial hysteria of the Aztecs before the invasion of the Spaniards, during which the priests waded in the blood of the ritual massacres, and wars had to be conducted that were the fiercer the more difficult it became to procure, from the surrounding peoples, the masses of prisoners for sacrifice that were acceptable to the gods. And all of this in order to save the empire from a danger that had been proclaimed by astrology and that was realized on the very day it was prophesied for. But at that point there was a shortage precisely of those who had the qualities of nobility that were needed to make them satisfactory to the gods as sacrifices.46 (Blumenberg 1979, p. 28)

The Aztecs had foreseen the coming of a great evil and, in order to avert it, took massive countermeasures: they sacrificed the best warriors of the neighboring tribes to secure god’s favor. By doing so, they deprived themselves of those very resources that could have been of great use in fighting the foreseen evil. Anxiety does not only paralyze us, but also urges us to convulsively perform actions that have an interesting specificity: they go in the diametrically opposite direction to our will, preparing our future paralysis. These actions therefore follow an autoimmune logic in Derrida’s sense (Derrida 2003). Driven by the will to avoid the worst, we carry out actions that we believe are capable of safeguarding us from the future irruption of the negative, while they undermine our present defenses so much as to lay the foundations for our future helplessness. We take countermeasures which have a negative vocation: the counter-measures dictated by anxiety will prove to be counter-productive. Put in Freudian terms, in the same anxiety-preparedness (Angstvorbereitung) there coexist a rational and an expedient tendency aimed at avoiding the repetition of the traumatic event, and another negatively inspired tendency. The latter goes in  “Zu erinnern ist, um einen Extremwert vorzustellen, an die Opferhysterie der Azteken vor dem Einbruch der Spanier, bei der die Priester im Blut der rituellen Massaker wateten und um so grausamere Kriege geführt werden mussten, je schwieriger es wurde, die Massen der den Göttern genehmen Opfergefangenen bei den umwohnenden Völkern zu beschaffen. Und dies alles, um das Reich vor einer Gefahr zu bewahren die die Sterndeutung angekündigt hatte und die sich aufs Datum der Prophezeiung erfüllte. Da aber fehlte es gerade an denen die die Adelseigenschaften besaßen, um als Opfer den Göttern wohlgefällig zu sein.” (Blumenberg 1979, p. 12)

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exactly the opposite direction, according to a form of a pre-established disharmony: it opens the way to the situation of impotence. It is appropriate to make a brief digression towards the episode of the Aztech sacrifice referred to by Blumenberg. He does not provide any bibliographic indication regarding this specific event. It was therefore impossible for me to find additional information about it. Still, the possibility of such a prediction is hardly surprising when one considers Aztec conception of time. It must be borne in mind that the Aztecs were particularly devoted to prophecy. Todorov distinguishes several forms of divination present in their culture. One of them can be defined as a cyclical divination. This has striking analogies with what we traditionally ascribe to astrology: each day of the calendar possesses a certain quality that has a significant impact on human activities.47 Individual destiny itself is determined by the quality of the day in which one was born (Todorov 1984, pp. 63–64). Another form of divination has the character of an omen: every anomaly, every irregularity encountered in daily life, was experienced as an unequivocal sign of an imminent future event (most of the time of the negative kind): The whole history of the Aztecs, as it is narrated in their own chronicles, consists of realization of anterior prophecies, as if the event could not occur unless it has been previously announced: departure from a place of origin, choice of a new settlement, victory or defeat. Here only what has already been Word can become Act. The Aztecs are convinced that all such divinations come true, and only very rarely attempt to resist the fate declared to them; in Maya the same word signifies “prophecy” and “law”. “That which has been fated it cannot be avoided.” (Durán III, p. 67). “These things shall be accomplished. No one shall cause them to cease” (Chilam Balam, p. 22). And such things indeed come to pass, since men do their best to bring them about; in other cases the prophecy is all the more accurate in that it will be formulated only in a retrospective fashion, after the event has taken place. In all cases these omens and divinations enjoy the greatest prestige, and if necessary one will risk one’s life to obtain them, knowing that the reward is in proportion to the peril: the possessor of the prophecy is a favorite of the gods; the master of interpretation is indeed the master. (Todorov 1984, p. 66)

In other words, it would not be too daring to say that Cortes’s arrival was foreseeable and foreseen (the two terms tend to be synonymous here) according to Aztech cyclical conception of time.48 Let us return to the previous question: why should we resort to the unusual tale of a fulfilled prophecy to understand the usual affect of anxiety? In my view, there are at least two reasons for this choice. I have already mentioned the first: it  The Aztec calendar has no starting point and is extremely complex: it includes the interconnection of several cycles (of 13 days, 26 days, 260 days, and 365 days) that flow back to a series of infinite repetitions of 52-year cycles (Hassig 2001, p. 17). 48  One of the most accredited explanations of the conquest of Cortes is related to the absence of resistance of an empire that had a superior number of men. This absence of resistance was motivated by religious reasons: the appearance of Cortes was experienced as the coming of Quetzalcoalt—the returning god (Acosta 1962; Durán 1967; Sahagún 1975; Diaz del Castillo 1983). This interpretation would find support in the Aztec calendar (Sahagún 1956; Diaz del Castillo 1983). Hassig criticizes this reading as a late reinterpretation of the events provided by the Aztecs after their defeat (2001). 47

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concerns the negative teleology. In anxiety, we perform actions in the hope and conviction that they can allow us to avert the impending threats, while they not infrequently pave the way for our condition of helplessness. Blumenberg’s tale of the Aztec sacrifice exemplifies this dynamic in a striking way. Secondly, I use this apparently implausible occurrence of a fulfilled prophecy to point out that a certain detachment from common sense takes place in anxiety. In anxiety, a different relation to the world shows itself. One is almost hypnotized by the imminence of future evil, seeing and looking for signs of its arrival everywhere. The phenomenon of anxiety is in some ways closer to Aztec temporality than to the rational and detached nature of a pragmatic attitude. In his early work Über die Berechtigung, von der Neurasthenie einen bestimmten Symptomenkomplex als “Angstneurose” abzutrennen (On the Grounds for Detaching a Particular Syndrome From Neurasthenia Under the Description ‘Anxiety Neurosis’), Freud already identified the precipitate anticipation of the negative as one of the main characteristic of anxiety neurosis. Anxious expectation. I cannot better describe the condition I have in mind than by this name and by adding a few examples. A woman, for instance, who suffers from anxious expectation will think of influenzal pneumonia every time her husband coughs when he has a cold, and, in her mind’s eye, will see his funeral go past; if, when she is coming towards the house, she sees two people standing by her front door, she cannot avoid thinking that one of her children has fallen out of the window; when she hears the bell ring, it is someone bringing news of a death, and so on—while on all these occasions there has been no particular ground for exaggerating a mere possibility. (Freud 1962, p. 92)

According to Freud, this specific negative attitude toward the future is also typical of anxiety in normal subjects, although it increases in intensity and frequency in persons suffering from anxiety neurosis. In anxiety, there is a specific certainty about the inevitability of the future evil that finds no apparent justification in experience. This certainty guides one’s responses to one’s surrounding world, one’s decisions and actions. Suddenly one is sure that the worst will happen.

5.2  Complicity Anxiety counts on our accomplice complacency. Its strength depends on our weakness. In anxiety there is a feeling of impending catastrophe. The imminent future, the next day, is experienced as “the day of annihilation” (Kierkegaard 1976, 77). Kierkegaard rightly underscores that this (future) annihilation would be “a helpless nothing if you did not lend it your strength” (Kierkegaard 1976, pp. 77–78). The riddle precisely lies in several questions: why are we willing to lend our strength to the catastrophic attitude? If the next day is nothing, why do we experience it now as the day of judgment? Why do we attribute such an overwhelming power to that which does not exist yet and possibly will never occur? How should we understand

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our “natural” submission to anxiety’s “ghosts”? Is our submission a symptom or, perhaps, a signal of our inability to keep different intentional acts, such as those of imagination, perception and anticipation, distinct? Or is this complacency in some way connected to the ontological fragility of our exposure to an uncertain future— of our ignorance about the future—whereas we are capable both of anticipating the facticity of the future (“it will be a future”) and of projecting our ghosts into it? Is then anxiety related to the essential contingency of our life? We are surely not master of our destiny. We cannot even calculate the consequences of our own decisions leading us to unforeseen and unpredictable challenges. Let us now consider this aspect in more detail. Anxiety signifies a preoccupation with a change that does not lay in our control and therefore entails the possibility of undergoing a radical transformation: we will not be able to recognize ourselves in this (open) future; such a radical transformation will no longer allow you to find yourself. In other words, the permanent and unpredictable change of our life implies a certain anxiety–and here the adjective “certain” must be maintained in its ambiguity between determination and certainty. To deepen our understanding of this aspect of anxiety, it would be wise to cite a passage from Kafka’s letter to Max Brod, written on 4th July 1922. There, the relation between change, anxiety, and contingency, is taken to its extreme consequences: Honestly speaking, I have this terrible anxiety for the trip; naturally, not only for this trip and not merely about the trip in general, but for any change. The bigger the change is, the bigger the anxiety, but it is only relative. If I limited myself to the tiniest changes— though life does not really allow this—then eventually changing the position of a table in my room becomes just as terrible as the trip to Georgental. By the way, not only the trip to Georgental is terrible: the departure from there will be terrible too. It is after all only death anxiety in the last or next to last analysis. And partly an anxiety for drawing the attention of the gods to me.49 (Kafka 1994, p. 323)

Each change draws the trajectory of a journey whose end cannot be anticipated. It is as if subjectivity were exposed to a departure without return: a movement which is a premonition of death. Even the slightest change opens up indeterminate and indeterminable scenarios. The anticipation of future anxiety generated by the departure to Georgental makes a specific difference visible, that is, the difference between actual and more defined anxiety (before the trip to Georgental) and a more general anxiety before the continuous change of our precarious circumstances. This differentiation suggests the following idea: since unpredictable change characterizes every circumstance, every circumstance contains the seed of anxiety. How should  “Ich habe, aufrichtig gesagt, eine fürchterliche Angst vor der Reise, natürlich nicht gerade vor dieser Reise und überhaupt nicht nur vor der Reise, sondern vor jeder Veränderung; je größer die Veränderung ist, desto größer zwar die Angst, aber das ist nur verhältnismäßig, würde ich mich nur auf allerkleinste Veränderungen beschränken—das Leben erlaubt es allerdings nicht—, würde schließlich die Umstellung eines Tisches in meinem Zimmer nicht weniger schrecklich sein als die Reise nach Georgental. Übrigens nicht nur die Reise nach Georgental ist schrecklich, auch die Abreise von dort wird es sein. Im letzten oder vorletzten Grunde ist es ja nur Todesangst. Zum Teil auch die Angst, die Götter auf mich aufmerksam zu machen.” (Kafka 1994, p. 323)

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we interpret the last sentence: “And partly anxiety for drawing the attention of the gods to me”? This passage probably intends to suggest that in anxiety there is an egocentric, narcissistic tendency which is already guilt—the guilt of being and feeling oneself at the center of the world: hubris.

5.3  T  he Intertwining Between Desire, Anxiety and Prohibition: A Brief Exegesis of a Passage by Proust Anxiety and desire are as inseparable as Siamese twins. And at the same time the shadow of the law (the third) always affects their dynamics. The vicissitudes of the relations between desire, anxiety and prohibition cannot be anticipated and may take unexpected turns. To understand the complexity of their interconnections, it is appropriate to consider a passage from the second volume of the Recherche: À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. Proust’s analysis concerns the conflict between the parents and their son about whether or not to attend a theatrical performance which, according to the parents, may be too invasive for young Marcel’s fragile psychological condition. With all his heart, Marcel aspires to go to that show where the actress Berma, the “divine Beauty,” will act. His mind remained fixed from morning to night on her epiphanic apparition50: And with my eyes fixed on that inconceivable image, I strove from morning to night to overcome the barriers that my family was putting in my way. But when those had fallen, when my mother—albeit this matinée was to take place on the very same day as the meeting of the Commission from which my father was to bring M. de Norpois home to dinner—had said to me: “Very well, we don’t want you to be unhappy; if you think that you will enjoy it so much, you must go”; when this day of theatre going, hitherto forbidden, depended now only on myself, then for the first time, being no longer troubled by the wish that it might cease to be

 “I implored my parents, who, after the doctor’s visit, were no longer inclined to let me go to Phèdre. I recited to myself all day long the speech beginning, On dit qu’un prompt départ vous éloigne de nous… seeking out every intonation that could be put into it, so as to be able better to measure my surprise at the one Berma would have found. Concealed like the Holy of Holies beneath the veil that hid her from my gaze and behind which I invested her at every moment with a new aspect, according to which of Bergotte’s words— in the pamphlet that Gilberte had found for me—came to my mind: ‘plastic nobility, Christian austerity, Jansenist pallor, Princess of Troezen and of Clves, Mycenean drama, Delphic symbol, Solar myth,’ that divine Beauty, that Berma’s acting was to reveal to me, night and day, on an altar perpetually illumined, sat enthroned in the sanctuary of my mind, my mind for which my stern, my fickle parents were to decide whether or not it was to enshrine, and for all time, the perfections of the Deity unveiled, in the same spot where now stood her invisible form.” (Proust 2015, p. 16) If political theology is to be understood as a secular transposition of theological conceptual assemblages onto the political sphere, one can glimpse in Proust’s passage a genuine expression of that aesthetic theology that will become increasingly prominent in the twentieth century.

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impossible, I asked myself whether it was desirable, whether there were not other reasons than my parents’ prohibition that should make me abandon my plan.51 (Proust 2015, pp. 16-17)

Proust’s passage is extraordinary for several reasons. As soon as the prohibition (“the no”) is suspended, a new form of self-relation arises that finds expression in a question: is what have I been ardently desiring until now really desirable for me? Up to this point there was no break, no “critical distance” between himself and his own desire: Marcel was immediately drawn towards what he wanted because it was denied by the other: the other’s “no” arouses my desire. The unconditionality of the desired depends on the other’s prohibition, that creates a distance between me and the object of my desire: the sense of impossibility (prohibition) feeds the phantasm of the infinite relevance of the absent. Until this point, Marcel’s affective life is in line with what one may call the Saint’s Paul principle, with reference to the drive’s dynamics highlighted in his Epistle to the Romans: “What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would have been mindful of sin if not for the law. For I would not have been aware of coveting if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.” (Romans, 7:8) Until that moment, Marcel oscillates between the anxiety of missing what was literally an unmissable opportunity and a stubborn rebellion against the will of the other (his parents) who denies his own will. However, to use Hegelian terminology, Marcel’s own will was not yet posited as such, that is, it still maintained its reactive character: only now, through the suspension of the parents’ prohibition, a more transparent self-relation becomes possible for Marcel, who asks the question: do I really want to go to the theater? Only now is it possible for him to evaluate and weigh the other reasons that could have led him not to go to the theater. Furthermore, the relation with his parents, with those who lay down the law, is transformed. In the first place, although I had detested their cruelty, their consent made them now so dear to me that the thought of causing them pain stabbed me also with a pain through which life appeared to have as its goal not truth but affection, and life itself seemed good or evil only as my parents were happy or sad.52 (Proust 2015, p. 17)

Once the law allows what was originally forbidden, the self tends to identify itself with that law that has given unexpected proof of such generosity, giving rise to a sense of having betrayed it, a sense of guilt. This provokes a further distancing from one’s own original desire is, which is thus doubly mediated. A reversal of the value axis takes place: the originary desire was directed at the epiphanic encounter with the absent  “Et les yeux fixés sur l’image inconcevable, je luttais du matin au soir contre les obstacles que ma famille m’opposait. Mais quand ils furent tombés, quand ma mère – bien que cette matinée eût lieu précisément le jour de la séance de la Commission après laquelle mon père devait ramener dîner M. de Norpois – m’eut dit: «Eh bien, nous ne voulons pas te chagriner, si tu crois que tu auras tant de plaisir, il faut y aller», quand cette journée de théâtre, jusque-là défendue, ne dépendit plus que de moi, alors, pour la première fois, n’ayant plus à m’occuper qu’elle cessât d’être impossible, je me demandai si elle était souhaitable, si d’autres raisons que la défense de mes parents n’auraient pas dû m’y faire renoncer” (Proust 2015, pp. 16–17). 52  “D’abord, après avoir détesté leur cruauté, leur consentement me les rendait si chers que l’idée de leur faire de la peine m’en causait à moi-même une, à travers laquelle la vie ne m’apparaissait plus comme ayant pour but la vérité, mais la tendresse, et ne me semblait plus bonne ou mauvaise que selon que mes parents seraient heureux ou malheureux.” (Proust 1954, p. 444) 51

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Berma. Now the value of tenderness—being in harmony with the other who is close to me and generously loves me despite my otherness—becomes primary. We are therefore witnessing a questioning of those value instances implicit in desire that greatly influence its dynamics. Marcel now feels sorry for not making those he loves happy. “I would rather not go, if it hurts you,” I told my mother, who, on the contrary, strove hard to expel from my mind any lurking fear that she might regret my going, since that, she said, would spoil the pleasure that I should otherwise derive from Phèdre, and in consideration of which she and my father had reversed their earlier decision. But then this sort of obligation to find a pleasure in the performance seemed to me very burdensome.53 (Proust 2015, p. 17)

The mother assumes the son’s perspective and the son assumes the perspective of the mother. Whereas before each person blindly pursued their own interest, now in an equally blind and immediate way each wants to protect and favor the interest of the other. Moreover, it is interesting to observe that Marcel changes his attitude to his own feelings: the past glowing desire is now perceived as an obligation, as if it were an external duty. I do not intend to follow the narrative plots of Marcel’s desire any further. In any case, the vicissitudes and entanglements between desire, loyalty to the other, prohibition, and anxiety of missing events and oneself constitute an open-ended adventure. I will only mention the fact that the encounter with a bill of the play Phédre was enough to rekindle in him the dormant desire and make him forget everything else. The bill did not add any information about the play, but it made it tangible and urgent: But suddenly everything was altered; my desire to go hear Berma received a fresh stimulus that enabled me to await the coming of the matinée with impatience and with joy: having gone to take up, in front of the column with the theatre listings, my daily station, as excruciating of late as that of a stylite, I had seen there, still moist, the complete bill of Phèdre, which had just been pasted up for the first time (and on which, I must confess, the rest of the cast furnished no additional attraction that could help me to decide). But it gave to one of the goals between which my indecision oscillated a form at once more concrete and— inasmuch as the bill was dated not from the day on which I was reading it but from that on which the performance would take place, and from the very hour at which the curtain would rise—almost imminent, well on the way, already, to its realization, so that I jumped for joy in front of the column at the thought that on that day, precisely at that hour, I would be sitting there in my seat ready to hear Berma.54 (Proust 2015, p. 17)

 “« J’aimerais mieux ne pas y aller, si cela doit vous affliger », dis-je à ma mère qui, au contraire, s’efforçait de m’ôter cette arrière-pensée qu’elle pût en être triste, laquelle, disait-elle, gâterait ce plaisir que j’aurais à Phèdre et en considération duquel elle et mon père étaient revenus sur leur défense. Mais alors cette sorte d’obligation d’avoir du plaisir me semblait bien lourde.” (Proust 1954, p. 444) 54  “Mais brusquement tout fut changé, mon désir d’aller entendre la Berma reçut un coup de fouet nouveau qui me permit d’attendre dans l’impatience et dans la joie cette « matinée »: étant allé faire devant la colonne des théâtres ma station quotidienne, depuis peu si cruelle, de stylite, j’avais vu, tout humide encore, l’affiche détaillée de Phèdre qu’on venait de coller pour la première fois (et où à vrai dire, le reste de la distribution ne m’apportait aucun attrait nouveau qui pût me décider). Mais elle donnait à l’un des buts entre lesquels oscillait mon indécision une forme plus concrète et – comme l’affiche était datée non du jour où je la lisais, mais de celui où la représentation aurait lieu, et de l’heure même du lever du rideau – presque imminente, déjà en voie de réalisation, si bien que je sautai de joie devant la colonne en pensant que ce jour-là, exactement à cette heure, je serais prêt à entendre la Berma, assis à ma place.” (Proust 1954, p. 444) 53

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Desire imposes itself over the scruples we feel on behalf of the other we love (and also on self-identification with the law). Due to a chance encounter the event now suddenly appears as impending: as soon as the premonitory signs of its coming towards us manifest themselves, desire is there—ready to be reborn out of nothing with the same subduedness with which it had disappeared.

5.4  “ But Not Now”: Hopes and Anxiety Before the Law (Vor dem Gesetz) Kafka’s parable Vor Dem Gesetz (“Before the Law”) confronts us with the enigma of not being able to cross the threshold of an open door. The unfortunate protagonist of Kafka’s story—a man from the country—misses that destination to which he alone was called. Tragically, while dying he discovers his “election” from the very person who forbade him access. The man from the country desires to enter but is hesitant, since he does not feel comfortable to disregard the instructions of the gatekeeper who firmly made it clear that he is not allowed to enter, for now. For sake of clarity it is appropriate to report Kafka’s parable in its entirety: BEFORE the law stands a doorkeeper. A man from the country comes up to this doorkeeper and begs for entry into the law. But the doorkeeper says he cannot grant him entry now. The man considers, and then asks whether this means that he might be allowed entry later. ‘It is possible’, says the doorkeeper, ‘but not now’ (“‘Es ist möglich,’ sagt der Türhüter, ‘jetzt aber nicht.’” ). As the gateway to the law is open as always, and the doorkeeper moves to one side, the man stoops so as to see inside the gate. When the doorkeeper notices this, he laughs, saying: ‘If it tempts you so much, go on, try, even though I forbade you. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the lowliest of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there are doorkeepers, each mightier than the last. The mere sight of the third is something even I cannot bear.’ Difficulties like this were something the man from the country did not expect; surely the law should be accessible to all, always, he thinks, but when he looks more closely at the doorkeeper in his great fur coat, with his sharp nose and long, thin Tartar’s beard, he decides after all rather to wait until he receives permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool, and lets him sit down to one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many efforts to be let in, and wearies the doorkeeper with his pleading. The doorkeeper will often arrange a little interrogation with him, questioning him about his homeland and a great deal besides, but his questions show no interest; they are put as great lords might put them, and in the end he tells him again and again that he cannot let him in yet. The man, who has equipped himself well for his journey, uses everything, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The latter, indeed, accepts everything, saying as he does so: ‘I am taking it only so that you do not think that you have left anything out.’ In the course of the many years the man watches the doorkeeper almost constantly. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him to be his only obstacle to entering the law. He curses this unfortunate accident, loudly and recklessly in the early years, but later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself, and, as his years of studying the doorkeeper have allowed him to perceive even the fleas in his thick fur collar, he even begs the fleas to help him change the doorkeeper’s mind. In the end his sight begins to fail, and he cannot tell whether it is really growing darker around him, or whether his eyes are just deceiving him. But he does indeed perceive a radiance in the dark, breaking forth inextinguishably from the door. Now he has not much longer to live. On the brink of death, everything he has experienced in all his time there concentrates in his mind into one question which he has not yet put to the doorkeeper. He beckons him over, for he can no lon-

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ger raise his stiffening body upright. The doorkeeper has to bend low to him, for the difference in their heights has changed, very much to the man’s disadvantage. ‘What more do you want to know now?’ asks the doorkeeper, ‘You’re insatiable.’ ‘Surely everyone aspires towards the law?’ said the man. ‘How is it that in all these many years no one except me has demanded entry?’ The doorkeeper perceives that the man is already near his end, so to reach him as his hearing fails, he bellows at him: ‘Nobody else could be granted entry, for this entrance was meant only for you. I shall go now and close it.’ (Kafka 2012, pp. 20–22)

It is evident that the gatekeeper is evasive. He is very careful not to say: you may not and may never have access to the Law. On the contrary, he remains open to the possibility of the man from the country’s entry into the law. The gatekeeper elegantly fosters that subtle voice of hope that always dwells in anxiety by saying “you cannot enter for now”  — implying the possibility that it will be different in the future. Kafka’s parable is a fuga on the expression “jetzt aber nicht” (“but not now”), the ground on which hopes and anxieties best germinate: maybe, maybe in the future you can, but not for now. It leaves open a glimmer to the future where the door is open. Hobbes pointedly emphasizes the intertwining between fear and hope: Hope is expectation of good to come, as fear is the expectation of evil: but when there be causes, some that make us expect good, and some that make us expect evil, alternately working in our minds: if the causes that make us expect good, be greater than those that make us expect evil, the whole passion is hope; if contrarily, the whole is fear. Absolute privation of hope is despair, a degree whereof is diffidence. (Hobbes 1840, p. 44)

The oneiric aspect of Kafka’s story is linked to the specific temporality staged in the relation between the man from the country and the gatekeeper: the man from the country’s future is negated at every moment by the other. The gatekeeper’s denial of the possibility of a shared and fulfilled future nails him to a state of suspension. The fascination of Kafka’s text also derives from the contrast between the stalled situation and the vicissitudes of the emotional life of the country man. On the one hand, the scene remains for years surreally static: the paradoxical sense of a frozen duration comes to the fore (indeed nothing happens, if one excludes the few words exchanged between them). On the other hand, the reader may participate in the vicissitudes of the feelings of the country man which oscillate between an ever-renewed desire to cross the threshold and the whole diverse range of anxiety: anxiety about the future (if I decide to enter, will I be held accountable for my actions, for the infraction? Will I be brought before the Law?), anxiety about the present (how can I avoid making a mistake now?), and anxiety about the past (if only I had done differently …). Moreover, the gatekeeper does not say to the man from the country “you are not able to impose yourself on me,” but instead warns him: even if you are able to cross this threshold, even if you disregard my word and manage to pass— which, however, is not easy since I am powerful—there will be even more powerful gatekeepers after me, and their power is such that even I cannot stand the sight of them. The country man remains on this side of the threshold: he believes the guardian’s words of anxiety. The expression “words of anxiety” must be maintained in its ambiguity: these words in part testify to the dizziness of the gatekeeper’s own anxiety with respect to the exponentially progressive power of the guardians of that Law of which

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he is the spokesman. At the same time, these words generate anxiety in the country man: he is not ready, without the guardian’s permission, to cross the threshold of the Law, “that law which should be accessible to all.” The country man sees the Law as a space of belonging: everyone should have access to the Law. From his words, the Law seems to embody the hope of a shared space. The country man desires to inhabit that shared space. But for now (a now that becomes an indefinite and mortal duration) he is not allowed to. Among the abundant interpretations to which it lends itself,55 I would like to mention the following: it expresses or, at least, can be read as expressing the tragic moment inherent in each process of socialization of the individual. Participation in the shared space requires the permission of the other as a third, who, however, for reasons of principle cannot recognize the singularity of the individual. The self becomes oneself only through normalization processes that occur through the permission of the other: the other’s recognition, as the third (the gatekeeper), allows the individual to become oneself. And, at the same time, the other’s recognition may make the self unrecognizable to itself: it alienates the self in an irreversible way. Alienation through recognition therefore seems indispensable in order to become oneself and at the same time in it there is always a risk of disfiguring one’s own singular face. The country man follows the words of the guardian, who is the spokesman of the Law, and remains excluded from himself. The paradoxical aspect of this parable is precisely that the country man is excluded from the Law, by following the Law: he obeys the words of the gatekeeper. It should also be added that the perceptive horizon of the country man changes over time: if at the beginning he considers the different options relating to the series of different gatekeepers that he will eventually face, his horizon of expectation (and action) is gradually more and more narrowed. Only the gatekeeper standing before him occupies his thoughts without interruption and in an uncontested way. Over time, the figure of the gatekeeper appearing in his perceptual horizon becomes increasingly imposing. Every detail of his appearance seems to be decisive (he is even able to perceive “the fleas in his thick fur collar”). In the involute affect of anxiety, inaction is combined with the exaggerated attribution of value to every slightest change. A tendency toward anxiety and despair is closely connected to the internal “logic” of desire: one identifies oneself in one’s own totality with that which is desired. In Kierkegaard’s language, one could say that, thanks to the infinite passion of imagination, something earthly becomes the earthly in its totality. In Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard highlights this “logic” of desire: When the self in imagination despairs with infinite passion over something of this world, its infinite passion changes this particular thing, this something, into the world in toto; that is, the category of totality inheres in and belongs to the despairing person. The earthly and the temporal as such are precisely that which falls apart or disintegrates into particulars, into some particular thing. The loss or deprivation of every earthly thing is actually impossible,

 Regarding the different interpretations of Kafka’s parable see the following studies: Andringa 1994; Born 1986; Derrida 1985.

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for the category of totality is a thought category. Consequently, the self infinitely magnifies the actual loss and then despairs over the earthly in toto. (Kierkegaard 1980b, p. 60)

The totality is a projection of the despairing and desiring subject, since something earthly is by its nature particular: totality exists only “as a thought category.” Kierkegaard primarily describes the vicissitudes of desire in terms of the experience of loss. In my opinion, it is even more interesting to consider the process from the perspective of the one who desires something (future) so intensely that s/he can no longer relate to it. One cares about it so much that one prefers to put oneself out of the game: the self abdicates making the effort required to achieve what is so important to itself. This withdrawal is motivated by the totalizing nature of one’s own desire. It is indeed not so bizarre that the self prefers to avoid relating to what it desires so much that it is deeply distressed by it: if one’s own identity depends on that specific object of desire, each time one relates to it one also faces the possibility of failure, that is the possibility of not being oneself. Those who remain outside the Law, following it, are forced to live among their own ghosts.

5.5  Involuted Anxiety Consider the shadowy gaze of Francesco Maria Della Rovere in the famous Ritratto (Portrait), which following Suida’s studies has been attributed to Giorgione (Suida 1935). Francesco Maria della Rovere, son of Giovanni della Rovere and Giovanna di Montefeltro, must have been 12 years old at the time of the portrait. In all probability Giorgione did not have the opportunity to paint the young man from life: “It is not, therefore, a portrait from life, but one made from a drawing, commissioned by Elisabetta [Gonzaga] from Giorgione when Francesco Maria was elected prefect (“prefetto”) of Rome, inheriting the office of his father who died in 1501. The very appearance of the portrait— a solemn appearance that deviates from the course of Giorgione’s portraiture at this time—would seem to find its motif in the occasion of the commission: the election of the young man to the office of prefect.” (Ballarin 2016, p.  147) Since the Dukes of Urbino had no direct descendants, Francesco Maria was a suitable candidate for the succession. In Giorgione’s portrait, Francesco seems to be fully “aware” of his future political-military responsibilities.56

 Also according to Ferrari, the work must be considered as a “ritratto di rappresentanza” (“official portrait painting”) to present Francesco Maria as a future heir: “The Rovere heraldic reference offered by the decoration of the helmet and the very setting of the depiction, with the young boy, sumptuously dressed, placed in front of an imposing sequence of columns, suggest a ‘ritratto di rappresentanza’, intended to show Francesco Maria as the next heir to the leadership of the state (the of Senigallia, in this case, and not yet the Duchy of Urbino.” (Ferrari 2014, p. 206).

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Portrait of a Boy with Helmet Giorgio da Castelfranco, called Giorgione Copyright: © Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien

The drama of Giorgione’s painting is to a great extent due to the tension between the young man’s hesitant gaze and the size of his helmet. It is as if his helmet, disproportionately large, suggests that the boy feels his future tasks to be out of proportion: it is as if the helmet were giving visual expression to the future that “pre-occupies” the boy’s involuted gaze. One should bear in mind that great expectations were directed at Francesco Maria due to several premonitory signs revealing a destiny with great

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military successes.57 His hesitant gaze seems to betray his anxiety at not being up to the tasks ahead of him. In Giorgione’s painting, the helmet mirrors his fingers and part of his clothing, but does not reflect his own face. Still, the helmet seems to reflect two uncanny appearances. The first one is visible on the left side of the helmet. One can catch sight of its eyes and its open mouth, but it is not possible to properly “identify” its monstrous nature. In any case, it seems to express something wild and threatening. One may perhaps see the secret violence of drives and affects in it. The second appearance can be seen under the fingers of Francesco’s left hand. It is a man’s face portrayed in profile. For obvious reasons of perspective this face cannot be that of the young man. How should we interpret this second ghostly face? Certainly, this image reflected on the helmet is particularly blurred. It seems to be the face of an adult man with a solemn expression. The head appears to be adorned with something leaf-shaped and golden that recalls a laurel wreath, as if it were that of a victorious leader. If the helmet is understood as the surface of the future, it would be legitimate to glimpse in the reflected image the projection of Francesco Maria della Rovere’s forthcoming military fortune. The blurred image has an ambiguous nature. On the one hand, it confusedly represents the ghost of his future that oppresses him now. This visitation comes to the present from the future: his future identity is now—at the very moment of anxiety—at stake. On the other hand, its solemn aspect recapitulates the stylized expectations of a solemn past. It is as if that phantom reflected in his helmet were the condensed projection of his ideal self — a projection that incorporates the voices and values of those who have preceded him. While the content of the ghost confusingly combines past elements, Francesco’s hesitancy is motivated by the oppression (“pre-­occupation”) from his own future: “will I ever be able to live up to my predecessors?” Francesco’s gaze embodies a particular anxiety that could be termed “involuted anxiety”. In this condition, one does not reach out to the world and to others because one remains trapped in an anguished form of self-relation according to the dictum: “Will I ever be able to do so?” In the involuted condition, instead of committing to one’s own goals, one continually wonders if one is able to live up to them. It is as if a photographer about to take a picture finds himself staring at his finger which, being in front of the lens,

 “The disproportion between the helmet and the head of the figure is in all probability intentional in order to underline the heraldic value of the helmet and the still infantile age of the young man, his putto-like features, as well as the difference in scale that seems suggested by the comparison of the figure with the imposing colonnade behind. On the other hand, the concealment and the columns introduce meanings that one hopes are connatural to the character and destiny of the young boy. We know what prophecies of great military successes accompanied the growth of Francesco Maria and what importance the exercise of arms and all the military virtues of chivalry had on his education, both at the court of Guidobaldo and at that of Louis XIII, where he earned the trust of Gaston de Foix and the Order of Saint Michael from the king. At the same time it is evident that the painter and of course the commissioners wanted to emphasize his still tender age, not yet tempered by the exercise of arms and power: the delicacy and at the same time the embarrassment with which the young boy holds up the large helmet on the supporting surface remain unforgettable.” (Ballarin 2016, p. 460)

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covers his view of the subject. The involuted condition is driven by the fear, or better, by the terror of failure. It attracts us because it fulfills a positive function— in the short term inaction preserves us from failure, although it exposes us to it in the long run. The terror of failure allows us to preserve the primary narcissism at first, postponing the encounter with reality. A confused combination of inhibition and disproportionate ambitions occurs here. The involuted condition oscillates between the secret terror of failure and the corresponding desire to prove one’s own value in an incontestable way. It is precisely the terror of failure that pushes the self to lose itself in phantasies, in exalted projections of one’s own imagination: one loses oneself in the ambitions to “accomplish the impossible.” One shuns any determinate choice, because one feels that any particular objective is a priori incapable of doing justice to the extraordinary nature of one’s ambition. The involuted attitude corresponds in part to the infinitude’s despair illustrated by Kierkegaard in Sickness Unto Death: this form of despair consists of the lack of constraints; one loses oneself in the fantastic, in the unlimited (Kierkegaard 1980b, pp. 30-33). In this case, the escape is dictated by the anxiety of not being able to live up to one’s own (and other’s) expectation. In escaping towards the phantasmatic, one avoids the responsibility of the decision. But that very escape will in the future turn into an accusation to which the self must but will not be able to answer. In the involuted condition, one falls victim to confusing and excessive expectations of oneself—expectations that have been incorporated by the other. 58 It is therefore not surprising that one’s own action is oriented toward confirmation from the other. If the other says yes to me, I have permission to act. If the other acknowledges me, I exist. The judgments and even the projected expectations of the other assume ontological power—they determine one’s own being. Put differently, the other is endowed with auctoritas. Benveniste convincingly shows the affinity between author, augur, and authority: the earliest meaning of authority is not related to accretion or growth (augeo), but to the act of bringing into being: The primary meaning of augeo is discovered in auctoritas with the help of the basic term auctor. Every word pronounced with authority determines a change in the world; it creates something. This mysterious quality is what augeo expresses, the power which makes plants to grow and brings a law into existence. That one is the auctor who promotes, and he alone is endowed with the quality which in Indic is called ojah.59 (Benveniste 2016, p. 430, trans. modified)

 I use the term “incorporation” in a psychoanalytic sense, distinguishing this concept from introjection. Introjection is an unconscious process: one immediately identifies with the other while maintaining some awareness of one’s own identity. Introjection already involves the formation of an ego. Incorporation, on the contrary, is the internalization of the other before there is a subjectivity as self-relation capable of relating to the other (Meissner 1978; Hoffmann 1979; Mentzos 1982). 59  “Le sens premier de augeo se retrouve par l’intermédiaire de auctor dans auctoritas. Toute parole prononcée avec l’autorité détermine un changement dans le monde, crée quelque chose; cette qualité mystérieuse, c’est ce que augeo exprime, le pouvoir qui fait surgir les plantes, qui donne existence à une loi. Celui qui est auctor, qui promeut, celui-là seul est pourvu de cette qualité que l’indien appelle ojah” (‘force, puissance’). (Benveniste 1969, II, p. 151) 58

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In this attitude, the self is haunted by two different questions, which may be distinguishable later, but which at an early stage are unmistakable confused: May I do so? Can I do so? Accordingly, there is a tendency to postpone what one should accomplish, as if the time at one’s disposal were infinite. A certain terror of contact with reality stirs in the background because acting signifies possible exposure: there is a risk (and for those who are involute, a certainty) that one’s own failure will become visible to all. To summarize: in the involuted attitude, other’s expectations and judgments have a particularly prominent ontological relevance: they decide one’s ability to be. There is a tendency towards inaction. The self-relation is essentially characterized by the anxiety in terms of “I cannot” (to reverse Husserl’s notion of “I can”).

5.6  On Self-Disappointment What is most feared in the involuted attitude? Being disappointed in oneself. But what is disappointment? Let us imagine the following situation: you have put in considerable effort to pass all the selections for an academic position at a prestigious university. And you fail on the last phase of the selection process. Disappointment, bitterness are first bodily sensations, as if you had been beaten. 60 More precisely, the feeling is one of collapsing. Is the use of the word ‘collapse’ just an image? Is it metaphorical? Or is there not a real earthquake—collapsing—for temporalizing and spatializing consciousness? As a matter of fact, all the perspectives from which up to that moment one thought in relation to one’s own future are suddenly vanished. The opportunity on which so many hopes had been placed, on which one had almost already relied, has disappeared. The new development takes the ground (of the future) out from under my feet. Of course, from an external point of view one could say: basically nothing happened. Only a virtuality has disappeared. Daily life goes on as usual. You may have the same coffee at the same place on the street corner. And in all likelihood other job opportunities will come up. But this perspective misses the point. The situation is now radically different. And this difference clearly does not concern the relation with my immediate surroundings. Nor does it concern my general relation to the (general) possibility of the future. What has happened concerns my possibility of situating myself in the future, of inhabiting it proleptically in a determinate sense. I already counted on this job. This hope gave me stability and motivation. I already saw myself entering into that university building at the center of that city. Put more precisely, disappointment concerns the irreversible loss of the future place in its singularity. And this loss means a sudden hole in the intrigue of time-consciousness. Until the  This bodily dimension is colloquially expressed in different languages: “es war ein Schlag für mich”, “è stato un duro colpo,” “it hits me.”

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moment immediately preceding the bad news, nothing was easier than anticipating myself in that specific future condition, which also implied the possibility of spatializing/temporalizing my present world in relation to it: in the light of that future situation, my present condition took on a determinate (and luminous) aspect. The negative news about the position is therefore disorienting: (1) because it undermines self-projecting starting from the singular future condition (now one no longer knows where and how one will be) and, (2) because, at the same time, our past choices become less meaningful after this disappointment. 1. What was a positively pre-delineated horizon turns into the silence of an indeterminate, and probably hostile, future. Thus, the sense of being rejected prevails: one falls back on oneself. Falling back on oneself is a consequence of the collapse of the future, which, accordingly, should not be understood in a metaphorical sense. Here it is important to emphasize the stabilizing function of the hope for the continuity of temporalizing consciousness: that possibility, that future virtuality contributed to enhancing the continuity between the lived consciousness of the past and the future, between the protentions of protentions and the retentions of retentions, if one wants to use the language of Husserl’s Bernauer Manuskripte (Hua XXXIII). In the first two texts of the Bernauer Manuskripte, Husserl develops a new conceptual paradigm for understanding inner time-consciousness: the primary impression is no longer considered as the principle of the temporal process, but is treated as the result of the intertwining between protentions and retentions. The primary impression is conceived of as a partially content related fulfilled protention within a protentional flow that is inextricably intertwined with the retentional continuum: the protentional flow in fact “projects” past retentions into the future (Hua XXXIII, p. 7). In turn, the retentions maintain the protentional flow in both its open (i.e., unfilled) and partially fulfilled form (i.e., in the form of the primary impression) (Hua XXXIII, pp. 9–25). The experience of disappointment means that the protentional continuum can no longer rely on that anticipated possibility—it can no longer “lean” on that eventuality that already guaranteed me stability through its intertwining with the retentional continuum. Accordingly, the disappearance of that virtuality on which I relied causes a small earthquake in time-consciousness: I am now in uncharted waters. 2. Moreover, the news of failure undermines the meaningfulness of one’s own past actions. Failure retroactively reconfigures the sense of all the efforts made, all the time spent preparing for that job interview. All those actions — which receive their meaning outside of themselves, that is, in their (anticipated) success  — revealed themselves as meaningless. One must also consider how the death of this virtuality creates the urgency to find an alternative — one is forced to invent a new solution. In this regard, failure may be seen as a small death because it annihilates one’s own singular future Dasein on which one had already counted. One could say that those who live in the involuted attitude are not capable of going through these small deaths.

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6  Some Final Remarks 6.1  A Retrospective Look I have illustrated five characteristics of anxiety: the notion of quasi-intentional imaginative anticipation, the alteration of bodily (leiblichen) manifestations, its negative inspiration, our interlocution with it, and its negative teleology. Having illustrated these features, it is appropriate to raise some questions: what consequences does the present phenomenological description of anxiety have? Does underlining anxiety’s power of seduction contribute eventually to feed it? Does this perspective run the risk of fostering a certain mysticism of anxiety so widespread in philosophical literature? For these reasons, it is crucial to make a distinction between the lived experience of anxiety (i.e., how we immediately experience it) and the ways in which we must learn to deal with it. We thus return to the question of learning to be anxious in the right way, going through anxiety without succumbing to it (Kierkegaard 1980a, p. 61; see Sect. 4.2 of this chapter). In my view, an accurate phenomenological description of anxiety cannot underestimate the characteristics described so far: its autopoietic character, its seductive voice, the intertwinement between phantasy and anticipation, the certainty of an (always postponed) end and so on. However, the fact that we experience anxiety as an alien power, as a seductive melody, which by highly sophisticated means tends to reinforce and increase itself, does not mean that anxiety is necessarily such a sophisticated interlocutor: the strength of anxiety depends also on our responses which are most of the time wearily predictable and repetitive: when anxious, we always want to be elsewhere. Anxiety has its own will, as if it is an interlocutor. It also tends to lead us to where we do not want to go. Kierkegaard intends to teach us a strategy for gaining control over this alien power. It is important to note the process by which we should undergo its scrutiny: Then, when it announces itself, when it cunningly pretends to have invented a new instrument of torture, far more terrible than anything before, he does not shrink back, and still less does he attempt to hold it off with noise and confusion; but he bids it welcome, greets it festively, and like Socrates who raised the poisoned cup, he shuts himself up with it and says as a patient would say to the surgeon when the painful operation is about to begin: Now I am ready. Then anxiety enters into his soul and searches out everything and anxiously torments everything finite and petty out of him, and then it leads him where he wants to go. (Kierkegaard 1980a, p. 159)

The human being here resembles a snake charmer, practicing the best taming tactics. This passage awakens mixed feelings: –– It emphasizes a specific attitude that on several occasions is the right attitude towards anxiety: we should not avoid it, but must rather welcome it. We have to say: “Here I am.” As already said, we have to keep in mind that avoidancebehaviors only increase anxiety in the long-run. Pessoa says: “I bear the wounds

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of all the battles I avoided” (Pessoa 2002, §373).61 Each act of avoidance is to be considered a wound. With repeated avoidance, the wound becomes more profound and further “infected.” Rather than being a neutral act, avoidance is our active contribution to strengthening anxiety. Avoiding avoidance behavior, then, helps to free us from anxiety’s power of attraction. It seems to act as a counter-­ measure, disenchanting us from its spell. In other words, this welcoming attitude favors the disappearance of anxiety. –– However, one should not overestimate this tactic and confuse it with becoming the master of anxiety. Is welcoming anxiety then a necessary but not a sufficient condition for escaping from its spell? This prospective is also problematic. As I have previously emphasized: “what you pay attention to grows.” Anxiety’s ghosts receive their strength also from our attention. Learning to be anxious in the right way involves phronesis or, more precisely, a hermeneutics of kairos. Sometimes the right thing to do is to go away, indifferent to our own ghosts, as Dürer’s Knight does. Other times, the right thing to is to stay exactly where one is: one must learn to be patient with anxiety’s invasive visits, and welcome it as a guest. Counteracting anxiety is a tactical game.

6.2  Writing for Posterity In his writing La trace de l’autre (The Trace of the Other, Levinas 1986/2006), Levinas defines generosity and goodness through the category of the work as a movement of departure without return: “A work conceived radically is a movement of the same unto the other which never returns to the same”62 (Levinas 2006, p. 348). According to Levinas, this movement finds its exemplary figure in Abraham: “To the myth of Ulysses returning to Ithaca, we wish to oppose the story of Abraham who leaves his fatherland forever for a yet unknown land, and forbids his servant to even bring back his son to the point of departure”63 (Levinas 2006, p.  348). The departure without return is defined as a proof of patience. Patience, “pushed to the limit, means for the agent to renounce being the contemporary of its outcome, to act without entering the promised land” (Levinas 2006, p. 349). One commits oneself with all one’s might to creating a world in which one cannot participate: “To renounce being the contemporary of the triumph of one’s work is to have this triumph in a time without me, to aim at this world without me, to aim at a time beyond

 “Trago comigo as feridas de todas as batalhas que evitei.” (Pessoa 2003, §373)  “L’œuvre pensée radicalement est en effet un mouvement du Même vers l’Autre qui ne retourne jamais au Même.” (Levinas 1986, p. 267) 63  “Au mythe d’Ulysse retournant à Ithaque, nous voudrions opposer l’histoire d’Abraham quittant à jamais sa patrie pour une terre encore inconnue et interdisant à son serviteur de ramener même son fils à ce point de départ.” (Levinas 1986, p. 267) 61 62

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the horizon of my time. It works in an eschatology without hope for oneself, an eschatology of liberation from my own time”64 (Ibid.). The work of goodness means to prepare the optimal conditions for a time after my death: To be for a time that would be without me, to be for a time after my time, for a future beyond the celebrated “being-for-death,” to-be-for-after-my-death—Let the future and the most far-off things be the rule for all the present days— is not a banal thought that extrapolates one’s own duration; it is passage to the time of the other.65 (Ibid.)

One is responsible towards the future Other understood as authority: “the significance of an authority signifying after and despite my death, signifying to the finite I, to the I doomed to death, a meaningful signifying beyond this death”66 (Levinas 1998, pp. 172-3). Levinas rightly emphasizes patience in its generous efforts made for the sake of the Other. Yet, Levinas perhaps underestimates the emancipatory and liberating character of this movement without return also for my own time. Let us take a concrete example such as the work of writing: there are some (privileged) authors who consciously and systematically write for posterity. Not infrequently, two apparently antithetical expressions are used in this case as if they were equivalent: writing only for oneself and writing for posterity. The connection between these two expressions is neither accidental nor arbitrary. When it is said that one is writing for posterity, it may at first appear as if a narcissistic megalomania is involved in this attitude that is clearly out of touch with reality—as if posterity were clamoring for the present writing, as if they needed those few lines to be able to live better. This reading clearly misunderstands the issue. Having posterity as an addressee fulfills an entirely different purpose: it serves to suspend one’s own adherence to the world. It has a function similar to that of Husserlian transcendental epoché. When one says that one writes for posterity, one says first of all: I am writing for a time when I am no longer here—I am writing for a time after my death. This anticipation of my own non-being has a retro-active effect that frees me from my involvement in everyday urgencies in order to enhance a transparent self-­ relation — one speaks before and to the future Other in an infinitely free way (is it possible to think of the in-finite without the break of the death?). The prolepsis of posterity (future Others) entails a reference to the “time-beyond-my-death.” This reference already has the capacity to relieve us of immediate pre-occupations: it opens us to a transparency with respect to ourselves that would otherwise be inaccessible.

 “Renoncer à être le contemporain du triomphe de mon œuvre, c’est avoir ce triomphe dans un temps sans moi, viser ce monde-ci sans moi, viser un temps par-delà l’horizon de mon temps. Eschatologie sans espoir pour soi ou libération à l’égard de mon temps.” (Levinas 1986, pp. 267-268) 65  “Être pour un temps qui serait sans moi, pour un temps après mon temps, pour un avenir par-delà le fameux ‘être-pour-la-mort,’ être-pour-après-ma-mort —‘Que l’avenir et les plus lointaines choses soient la règle de tous les jours présents’ — ce n’est pas une pensée banale qui extrapole sa propre durée, mais le passage au temps de l’Autre.” (Levinas 1986, p. 268) 66  “Signifiance d’une autorité signifiant après et malgré ma mort: signifiant au Moi fini, au Moi voué à la mort, un ordre sensé signifiant au-delà de cette mort.” (Levinas 1991, p. 189) 64

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6.3  Becoming a Witness of Anxiety In anxiety one assumes the negative course of events by attributing the greatest value to them. It is no coincidence that cognitivist therapy aims to question, make conscious, and modify in patients with anxiety disorders their assumptions about the future (Carr 1974).67 To counter their negative assumptions, it is necessary to make them explicit and then verify them. For this reason, clinicians advocate for the use of diaries as therapeutic tool: it is highly recommended that while experiencing anxiety, the patient describes the feared situation in detail by answering the following questions: how likely do you think it is that the negative outcome is going to happen? What effects do you envision following the occurrence of the feared event? Naming and assessing the terms, the probability and the consequences of the threatening event allows the self to become aware of the unjustified nature of its assumptions, in order to regain a sense of reality. Those who suffer from specific phobias, such as spider phobias, are certain that the encounter with the animal will take a turn for the worse: the spider will approach and insinuate itself into the sleeve of their shirt and then move at great speed towards the most vulnerable members of their body … Patients confronted with the real situation are usually surprised to observe that the spider, as soon as it perceives their presence, tries in every way to get away. In this regard, a diary allows the patients to contrast their expectations and their lived experiences. To use a cognitivist language (disconsolately): therapy aims at highlighting the errors of thought (false assumptions) about the actual probability of the event and the severity of the damage. In anxiety, there is a tendency to overestimate the significance of the possible dangers, assuming an unfounded negative outcome. In their instructive text Cognitieve therapie bij sociale angst (“Cognitive Therapy of Social Anxiety”), Voncken and Bögels state that possibility (kans) and severity (ernst) are the two main factors involved in anxiety disturbances, but that ultimately severity should be considered more important (Voncken and Bögels 2010). The diary would then serve as tool to certify the falsity of patients’ previous cognitive assumptions. In my view, the diary fulfills a much more complex function. It makes us a witness of anxiety. What does it mean to be a witness here? In Quel che resta di Auschwitz (Remnants of Auschwitz), Giorgio Agamben shows that the term witness has two equivalents in Latin. The first is “testis.” Testis is the one “who, in a trial or lawsuit between two rival parties, is in the position of a third party” (Agamben 1998, p. 15). The second is “superstes”: the one who has survived a given situation. Although he does not explicitly refer to Benveniste, Agamben is clearly guided by his account. This implicit reference is particularly evident if one compares their texts with regard to the word superstes. In Quel che resta di Auschwitz, Agamben writes: “The second word superstes, designates a person who has lived through something, who has experienced an event from beginning to end and can therefore

67

 From the point of view of a cognitivist approach to anxiety disturbance, see Clark and Beck 2010.

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bear witness to it.”68 (Agamben 1998, p. 15) In his Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes (Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society), Benveniste writes: “This is not the only use of superstes: ‘To continue existence beyond’ implies not only ‘to have survived a misfortune, or death’ but also ‘to have come through any event whatsoever and to exist beyond this event,’ that is, to have been a ‘witness’ of it”69 (Benveniste 2016, p. 535). Here, the meaning of witness concerns the one who has survived what has happened to her. Shortly afterwards, Benveniste adds: We can now see the difference between superstes and testis. Etymologically testis means the one who attends as the “third” person (*ter-stis) at an affair in which two persons are interested; and this conception goes back to the Indo-European community. A Sanskrit text has it: “every time two persons are together, Mitra is there as the third person”; thus Mitra is by nature the “witness.” But superstes describes the witness as the one “who has his being beyond,” a witness in virtue of his surviving, or as “the one who stands over the matter,” who was present at it. (Benveniste 2016, p. 535)

But why should one become a witness to one’s own anxiety? Anxiety makes us tremble as if everything is already lost. The sense of future catastrophe already overshadows the present time. The patient art of becoming a witness to one’s own anxiety thwarts this distortion of perspective. Certainly rereading the diary allows the patient to re-presentify her own previous catastrophic expectations. However, returning to one’s own negative anticipations after that has taken place does not only show the falsehood of the past assumptions, but also teaches us to believe in surviving our anxieties: the diary addresses and implies my future self as witness after that alleged catastrophe implied in anxiety. As we have seen, Tillich argues that anxiety does not deal with the negative event, but rather has to do with the proliferation of its consequences after the irruption of the negative (see Sect. 1.1 of this chapter). Anxiety is the confusion that assails the subject who tries (vainly) to project itself in a time post festum, after the negative event, by letting it perceive now the living and real chaos of the future. The patient exercise of witnessing challenges the credit, faith and belief that we naturally accord to anxiety. It performatively undermines the basis of this credit. The very act of writing is at bottom an expression of confidence in returning to oneself after the supposed end: “I myself, who will re-read my diary, will see in a way that is not confused, but reflective and critical, that I have survived the supposed catastrophe. I will be able to elaborate and work through my anxieties.” In this sense, one can see a connection between the two different meanings of the word witness: superstes and testis. One must learn, in this return to oneself, to become a witness also as testis. The diary allows one to relate to their past anxieties as an external observer, as a third: if this unexpected event happened to someone

 “La seconda, ‘superstes’, indica colui che ha vissuto qualcosa, ha attraversato fino alla fine un evento e può, dunque, renderne testimonianza” (Agamben 1998, p. 34). 69  “Ce n’est pas là le seul emploi de superstes; “subsister par-delà” n’est pas seulement “avoir survécu à un malheur, à la mort”, mais aussi bien ‘avoir traversé un événement quelconque et subsister par-delà cet évènement’, donc en avoir été témoin.” (Benveniste 1969, II, p. 276) 68

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else under the same circumstances, would it be so serious? The act of writing does not only help me to verify in retrospect the lack of veracity of my assumptions and anticipations, but it is also an exercise of witnessing, which tacitly favors a less involved, retroactive look from the future at my present anxieties.

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